When I saw that Anita Sarkeesian’s second Tropes vs. Women in Games series had been posted, I looked forward to getting into the office to watch it. But by the time I arrived at my desk the video had been seemingly removed.
The message on the YouTube page read “[t]his video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service”.
The official Feminist Frequency twitter quickly responded…
Looks like my harassers abused YouTube’s flag function to get my new Tropes vs Women video removed. Not the first time it’s happened.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) May 28, 2013
Followers suggested uploading the video on another service like Vimeo, but it seems as though Anita is attempting to fix the issue on YouTube first.
We are looking into the issue and will update you all as soon as we know the full story and can get the video restored. #tropesvswomen
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) May 28, 2013
I just don’t get this kind of mentality. Disagree with the content of the video if you must, but why be so active about trying to censor it? That’s just utterly pathetic and actually pointless. This video will be seen, and it should be seen.
UPDATE: The video has been put back up. You can watch it here.
We appealed the bogus terms of service violation takedown with YouTube and our video appears to be restored: http://t.co/DRBeExNQ1B
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) May 28, 2013
Comments
112 responses to “Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women in Games Removed After Detractors Abuse YouTube’s Flag System [Update]”
Don’t try to understand the internet. It’ll only end in tears.
Lambomann speaks the troof, yo.
with that many games, i think you can make a bed
The internet is only the latest tool in the expression of human behaviour.
Are you kidding? It’ll START in tears.
“Ok son… on this doll show me what the internet did to you………..mother of god…”
“Pics or it didn’t happen son…”
Considering the comments on youtube its kinda funny that they make the pretense of censoring anything.
She allowed comments on her video this time?
This single incident gives credibility to her never ever allowing them.
Didn’t last long. Disabled comments again.
I wonder if the people who did that realise that they are giving her even more publicity and are making more people support what she’s doing.
Though I’m looking forward to when I can actually watch the video, quite enjoyed the first one, made me see a few things that I didn’t know I was blind to.
So very much this.
I personally didn’t enjoy the first one at all, for… so many reasons, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be seen, and ultimately this is just publicity. If you really disagree with her so vehemently, perhaps make your own video that systematically deconstructs her every point and shows it to be nonsense. Ugh what am I saying, people would just make a 20 minute ad hominem.
Streisand effect, thanks for hooking me up with great videos, haters.
People usualy blame anominity, but I think it’s lack of consequence… from a thousand miles away some-one can be a jerk, if their names agains it or not doesn’t matter, they can be a jerk and be fairly certain that no one will come for them… they wouldn’t do it in person, as the people around them may take offence.
Long story short, some people are jerks, and they love the internet, as it lets them be jerks to people they don’t have to meet in person.
Made me think of this… NSFW
Anita “you can’t comment unless you agree with me” Sarkeesian has been censored? Cry me a river, please. However, poetic justice aside, this is still wrong and it’s only going to achieve one thing: Anita’s crowd of idiot followers are going to take this incident as proof positive that misogyny is rampant on the internet. This even though no motive has been given for why the video was taken down, and no one has taken credit for it either. I promise you that every single Anita fan will rush to the conclusion that it was done by a coordinated group of woman hating cyber bullies.
Oh well. Time for popcorn.
I thought, as the above article said it was taken down due to too many negative votes. Besides this is the internet everyone seems to be entitled to have their opinion whether we like it or not. So people using an “exploit” in youtube to have a video removed seems far too vindictive and not an opposing opinion.
Really? She disabled comments because she was getting death threats, not because people disagreed with her. Do your due diligence next time.
I don’t see how that would stop her getting death threats. If anything, having them publicly stated and tied to a Google account would be bettewr for her.
I’m all for talking about the subject she is broaching, but she isn’t the person to do it. Her research is crappy, her points are sometimes wildly off-base, and her examples of proof are only tenuously connected. She stifles debate, calling detractors all trolls, has very little substance behind her pre-written speeches and she rattles off those same pre-written speeches all the damn time.
I WANT this dbate to happen. I WANT the topics she is bringing up to be discussed I WANT the gaming world to be a better place that is equally welcoming and entertaining for everyone. She is not doing a good job and her smarminess, coupled with her idea that her right to speech is sacrosanct, but the right to speech that others get only extends as far as it doesn’t disagree with her or otherwise hurt her feelings is a farce.
Her proof is only tenuously connected? Her research is crappy? Did we watch the same video? She brings up loads of examples of exactly what she’s discussing… seems pretty on point to me. Would you mind expanding your point?
[not saying the videos are perfect, she makes some statements without properly explaining how they’re linked in to the rest in about 4 places in the video, but in general, its good enough.]
I haven’t noticed her stifle debate but these videos are literally the only thing I’ve seen with her in them, so I also can’t say she doesn’t. All I can note is that a lot of the criticism aimed at her doesn’t seem to match up to my experience of her work…
After getting proper funding she has produced very little and she is supposed to be putting this forward as academic work; ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough.
But aside from that, her first video showed women in games as powerless objects, then gave several examples of women in games with agency. But that isn’t even really my issue.
She raises points, but then does nothing with them. She says “Here are things I don’t like”, then has no insight into why or how they are and what can be done about it. Think of it like an essay: You need to point out things and then you need to give a response to them based on expertise and research. She does the first and she sort of touches on the second. But what she doesn’t do is give us any reason why.
If you poke around online, you can see that she has made a single basic script and used some version of it, very slightly altered, for everything she has said publicly for years. There’s nothing new. There’s nothing interesting or controversial or eye-opening… Her job is literally to point out things she doesn’t like, but pretends that she is an academic.
Someone mentioned the video by Thunderfoot on YouTube called “Feminism vs Facts”. It’s a pretty solid video explaining what she did. I’m not sure I can be comparably… passionate in my questioning the value of her work, but I agree in principle.
She got a lot of money in order to produce a deeply researched and wide-in-scope documentary series. What she has done is thrown out more or les what she did before for free: 2 selectively researched, selectively blind, heavily biased opinion pieces that do nothing to further discussion and nothing to bring awareness other than to her fledgeling career as a professional talker-about-things.
Oh and she is stifling debate by, you know… stifling debate. Anyone who disagrees with her is branded a troll or a misogynist and she has disabled the public debate forums that accompany her vector for disseminating her views. That sounds like she is trying to stop her videos being held up to public scrutiny.
She disabled her comments because she was receiving death threats and stuff. That is not “public debate”. You are not entitled to have your opinion welcomed everywhere, especially when you definitely won’t know what you’re talking about.
They’re only “selectively blind” and “heavily biased” cause you’re scared of critically examining yourself or your medium.
If you’re saying her job is to “point out things she doesn’t like” I don’t think you really understand what literary criticism is. Nor the function of discourse in dismantling oppressive systems. Like seriously.
Trying to intellectualize your fear of criticism and hatred of women. So gross.
It really is amazing when people jump on a bandwagon. They do things like accuse people of all kinds of things that basic reading comprehension would put to rest. Did you read my first comment? The one where I welcomed the everloving shit out of eamining the medium? Where I said I desperately want this discussion to happen? Because I wrote it. Right up above. Go have a look, I’ll wait right here.
Now that you’ve read my comment, you can just go ahead and discard your accusations of me being scared, not understanding discourse or having a fear of criticism and hatred of women. Done that? Hope so. Now we can do this last bit.
She is a journalist, not an academic. Her research doesn’t meet academic levels of rigour, her points are only vaguely related to her examples and whether you like it or not, she really does cherry-pick her arguments, pretending that anything that doesn’t support her doesn’t exist. That’s fine for an opinion piece. It is not fine for academia. If she wants to be an academic, she has to work to the same standards as other academics. So far she hasn’t done that.
Let’s talk about discourse. We are having one right now. You know who isn’t? Sarkeesian. She is standing on a soap box. Once again, that’s fine for a journalist. Journalism is a one-way system where the journalist reports things to the consumers. It doesn’t require discourse. Academia does require discourse. Shutting down all discourse is what she is doing by removing all avenues of dissent, meaning that either she herself has a fear of criticism, or that her arguments themselves cannot stand up to academic rigour and she knows it. It really is unfortunate that people were giving her vitriolic shit. It really is shitty of people to criticise her based on her subject of study and not the results that she came up with. However, if she wants to be a serious academic, she has to endure the bullshit, like actual feminist academics do. I wish they didn’t have to, but that’s what happens when you try to bust up a cohesive system of subjugation. I doubt bell hooks would be the voice she is today if she shrunk from criticism.
Finally, let’s talk about pointing out the things she doesn’t like. There is a huge difference between criticising and critique. As an academic, it is her job to critique her subject of study. She should be analysing, mentally digesting, studying out on the fringes, exposing herself to as much information on the subject as possible, and then coming back with a thought-provoking response. She is not doing that. She is criticising. She is looking at things that she doesn’t like, telling you how much she doesn’t like them and then being a bit smarmy about the whole thing. That would get you a great, fat, fail in first year university, so there’s no way in hell it’s going to be accepted as public academic analysis; especially when she silences all dissent.
Well seeing as no one can comment on the videos your point is kind of invalid. Also I really can’t blame her for not taking the Youtube comments section as serious debate, unless you count numerous death threats and ‘tits or gtfo’ as reasoned debate.
Okay first of all, I find it wonderfully amusing how everyone assumes that I’m only talking about her youtube comments. It seems a trademark of the Anita followers to jump to conclusions that support their preconcieved notions about reality. I’m talking about her youtube, her facebook, her twitter, her tumblr… EVERYWHERE that she has the power to silence people, she happily does so.
Secondly, even if I were only talking about youtube comments, it is still a valid point – she is, to the best of her ability, taking away people’s ability to give their reaction to what she has said. The equivalent of this in an actual discussion, which is what she claims that she wants to have, would be to talk over the other person and not let them get a word in, and then to plug your ears when you’ve said everything you wanted to say. It’s disingenuous in the extreme, and completely ascinine besides.
I’m sory, but YOUR argument is invalid. Anita is a hypocrite and a liar, and yes I’m angry about it – she’s trying to make games less fun to play just so that she can line her pockets with cash from ignorant fools who think that they are doing society a service by backing her.
On a side note, let me thank the moderators of this site for actually letting my first comment go through – you are proving to me and to the the world that some of Anita’s followers are better than Anita herself.
You sound a bit angry about it all.
Oh, the FIEND! You mean she used a function that YouTube provides to EVERYONE to disable comments? She must be a hacker!
Seriously, if people are just going to use it to threaten death, bodily harm, and generally show their lack of cognitive ability, why bother having them? And it’s not censorship as YouTube is a privately owned space that sets the terms of service, and that service allows comments to be disabled. If YouTube ever becomes a public utility or national service, then you can start weeping about censorship.
Hey, I for one, do agree with some of her points, because unlike PATRICIA, she has enough evidence to back it up.
Considering she tries to censor everyone else and not allow anyone to voice their opinions on her videos while trying to shove her twisted views down everyone’s throat I’d say that justice has been served.
There’s a whole other internet out there…
Is it that she tries to censor everyone else or is it that the “dissenting” opinions expressed are so repugnant that any reasonable person would find it reprehensible.
It’s one thing to censor foul speech, quite another to censor a reasonable, well-thought out and articulate opinion (though even as I type this I realise that this is the internet and no such thing exists).
I find your comment rather repugnant in its well-worded refutation. I demand it be removed, post-haste!
Censoring everyone because some, or even a majority of responses are what you deem to be repugnant just censors out the well thought out and articulated opinions you would see posted in response to her videos.
Heh. Wow. Someone’s clearly a bit sensitive. I wonder, how did she shove her twisted views down your throat? Was it the crack teams of cyber-ninjas, going around to people’s houses and holding their eyelids open while the video is played on a dozen screens in front of them? Or maybe it was the subliminal messages inserted into reruns of How To Be a Gentleman?
Ohh, right, sorry, she posted her views on a web site. And any time a woman posts views on a web site, that’s a direct assault on you, shoving those views down your throat, and you must react immediately to destroy this terrible threat!
You must be a very, very busy person.
What a wonderful world we live in, full of well adjusted, mature adults who can easily share their opinions and discuss differences openly with acceptance and consideration.
Unfortunately, this world only exists on Kotaku.
Maybe if I defend Sarkeesian, I’ll get some epic sex from her because I’m a nice guy! Brb, gotta “check my privilege”.
The core truth of any White Knight.
Is your worldview so impossibly narrow that you can’t conceive why anyone would support a woman unless there’s sex involved?
Is your worldview so impossibly narrow that you can’t conceive why anyone would support a woman unless there’s sex involved?
It’s worse than that. His worldview is so impossibly narrow that he can’t conceive why anyone would support a woman even if there’s sex involved.
That’s as funny as a train wreak.
If you honestly think that any kind of intelectual debate is being stiffiled by closing youtube comments
Let me say that again, intelectual debate in Youtube comments.
Than you are an idiot.
Also last I checked she wasn’t censoring the entire internet so you are free to go to whatever forum you please and complain about how she is attacking you’re free speech.
Then*
And nice straw man. Where did you buy it? The same place where you bought your Nice Guy badge?
Just to be clear, obviously nobody is claiming that Anita is CENSORING THE ENTIRE INTERNET. However, by saying that she want to stimulate a healthy discussion and then subsequently deleting all comments critical of her views, Anita is being an insufferable hypocrite.
‘Than you are an idiot.’
HA HA HA HA HA.
Regardless of how unintelligent the comment section is or might be, silencing it is out just shows how much faith she has in her own points.
I’d be willing to bet that if she allowed comments the top rated ones would be intelligently tearing her arguments apart completely given how poorly she argues her case.
Or… in the alternative… she might just be a little hesitant after being on the receiving end of on-line harassment that included death threats and a game where you got to physically assault her face.
You know, just a thought.
What? I’ve had plenty of fine debates in YouTube comments. Other than the 500 char limit, how is it different from any debate anywhere else?
There are more idiots, but they doesn’t exclue intelligent conversation.
When will this idiot go away. She has to have a cry over the dumbest crap. Boo Hoo sexism, boo hoo boobs, boo hoo woman in games boo hoo waaaaah cry sniffle.
Hey Rich I know you agree…..
Shorty out.
Not surprised. It is a sensetive topic. People rage too easily. I bet theres holes in her arguments all over the place, but people are too enraged to actually look and prove her wrong.
You cannot refute a womans argument, that is sexist!!!
I see what you did there.
Yes you can. It’s only sexist if you refute differently based on gender.
hahaha love how accurate that is.
Lighten up pussycat, you won’t get a husband dressing like a tarted-up lumberjack.
Good job proving that sexism isn’t a thing dude! *eyeroll*
What a moron….
Christ dude, attack the arguments, not the person.
Haha!! “Lighten up pussycat” is a quote from borat. He said it when he trolled the group of New York feminists, but it seems to work equally well on dimwits on the internet. Who would have thought?
The lumberjack comment is my own, but a troll nevertheless…
PS 3yo thread? Nice necroposting.
Oh my god
holy shit
I don’t know how I ended up on this article. I thought it was posted like, yesterday, not three years ago!
I’m retarded, I’m in the wrong, I fucked up
I fucked up
Just gonna put this here: http://potaku.com/2013/05/09/sexism-in-gaming-yes-but-whats-to-be-done/
Funny how she still insists on censoring the comments.
I really don’t get that. Yes they’re horribly abusive, but I’m pretty sure that’s only going to make her cause seem more credible. Furthermore, how are people supposed to publicly disagree with her if they can’t even comment on the video?
If she wants people to stop trying to censor her maybe she should stop trying to censor everyone else. And yes, there is some valid logic behind censoring the comments, but I don’t think that it’s really fair when it’s cutting out the people who actually decide to be logical and give genuine criticism.
If she can’t bear to hear people legitimately criticise her then that makes me really skeptical about listening to her opinions given she doesn’t want to listen to anyone else’s.
Besides it not like she is only getting abusive comments because of her view point.
Youtube comments are special. You can post a video of your cat playing the piano and you will be abused and told to kill yourself for having the wrong type of cat.
Exactly. Comments will be awful no matter where they are, even more so on Youtube. You get insanely stupid comments here on Kotaku, and Youtube is ten times worse. Spend enough time on the internet and eventually you need to realise that words are but wind and you need to deal with it or eventually someone is going to get horribly offended.
And we can’t have that, can we?
You also don’t need to put up with it on the internet if you don’t want to. So she chose not to. It’s fair enough, don’t understand why people are so butthurt over it.
You kind of destroyed your own, entire rant there. I’m sure if Anita was receiving, valid polite discourse the comments section would be open and a free for all to discuss, dissect and distribute information amongst each other on the topic.
However, when the topics of raping her, killing her, yo bitch do you swallow, how she looks like a ‘dolled up lumber jack’ (seriously, its a few posts back up that way ^^^) and such are all it gains from the online trollunity, (sorry but there’s no community there to speak of), then there’s zero reason for her to actually enable the comments section.
If all you take from the video is ‘I SHALL WATCH THIS AND IGNORE IT THEN RAGE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!’ then you’re much better off going and jerking off to pornhub to get your aggression out, seriously. It’s an entitled stance to believe that you deserve to be able to comment on there. What she’s done is provide a point of view, that you don’t have to agree with, but that enables conversation. Use it, don’t troll it.
Well there’s no other place to legitimately criticise her than the Youtube comments, and since she doesn’t post anywhere else to the best of my knowledge, she’s more or less completely removing the possibility of any criticism whatsoever. Intentional or not, it’s really stupid. If she wants to make public her opinions on video games then I should be able to make public my opinions on her.
And where on earth did I say I was raging at it or anything of the sort? I don’t “watch it and then rage in the comments” as you say. I watched it, disagreed with the majority of it, and think that on the whole it’s a waste of resources, time and brainpower. Why can’t I tell her that? I watched the entire video, some of it made sense, some of it didn’t. Why the hell should I not be allowed to tell her “you are wrong, here, here and here” because a bunch of jackoffs have too much fun actually being sexist towards her?
And as I said, the sexist comments are even more of a reason to enable the comments because they’re just proving her point that such sexism is prevalent anyway.
The rare pieces of valid and constructive criticism make it mandatory that the comments section should be enabled, in my eyes. Cheap way out of being criticised if they’re disabled. Same goes with the dislikes bar.
While I know that everyone is entitled to their opinion, Sarkeesian’s opinions do come off as selective and in some cases engineered.
I admit I am only half way though the first video but I am already seeing some problems. Again, I understand everyone is entitled to their opinions but there are flaws with hers.
In terms of Star Fox, for the most part she makes her case well but when she showed the footage of Fox McCloud looking at Crystal he cuts the footage off at the price point when Zippy or Pepper (I can’t remember who) tells fox off and to get on with the mission. At least that is how I remember it, it has been more than half a decade since I played the game and I got hopelessly stuck in the Fear Challenge.
She was also spending a fair bit of time trying to deconstruct Miyamoto’s work. The main thing that comes to mind is she is trying to find the trope in early arcade games and kids games. Seriously, such games should be considered in the same league as Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes – they are meant to be enjoyed not studied.
Also her saying the Mayamoto recycled his Donkey Kong formula doesn’t sound right to me (though I am open to being wrong). From what I read (most of it coming from the book, Game Over), Miyamoto drew a lot from his childhood wonder. Zelda came about from when he had some bushland he had at the back of him home. And Mario, stranglely enough, came about when he once stayed in a hotel and there a manhole right outside his window. Effectively, Mario came about from him wondering what would happen if he ever worked up the nerve to open that man hole he never did.
The video is much more rounded when she gets back to Zelda and while she does acknowledge that Zelda does play a helpful character from time to time she is very quick to try and highlight the negativity when she is captured, etc.
In all, here first video is not playing well to me. Had she focused on mature games there might be some standing but so far most the games are aimed a kids. Again, such games should be enjoyed and not studied.
Yeah, I have no interest whatsoever in watching any more of her videos unless someone else can do the muck-diving to tell me they’re better than the first one.
There are real issues of sexism in the industry which need to be discussed in a responsible way, but the first one was reaching so hard, so often, that it made me wonder why she even started with that one. It just reeked of someone looking for things to get offended by instead of tackling the more obvious in-your-face things to be offended by. And not a constructive thing out of it anywhere.
***
Either way, flagging the video for removal? Not only a low tactic, not only validation and publicity, but also ultimately futile. Anyone with half a brain would be fully aware that the video was going to be put back up after investigation.
Either this was deliberate astro-turfing to get the video more publicity, or there really are such apallingly stupid mouthbreathers out there who don’t realize that their attempts to ‘troll’ (ugh, way to cheapen the word; shouldn’t have actually been possible to) or ‘make it go away’ only create more attention.
I’m not sure which possibility is worse.
I’d say keep watching. A lot of her examples are more for impact/watchability but she analyses more deeply at the end of the videos.
And the arcade games were obviously not story masterpieces, so it’s natural they’d pick up the lazy tropes like the damsel (which games didn’t invent) but since that’s a part of her point it’s fair to include them.
I think the point is that these examples end up teaching kids that this is how women behave. Kids in particular don’t have enough reference points to determine that this or that portrayal is merely a caricature intended to prop up the gameplay or whatever, they just absorb these experiences then look for correspondences in real life (speaking as a gamer and a parent here).
I understand that the game designer was just trying to make a fun game, and likely wasn’t thinking deeply about the roles of the characters in it, but intentional or not, it’s continuing to promote these unhealthy stereotypes of inequality to a particularly receptive audience. And at some level, this does tend to affect people’s expectations and behaviour later in life.
Many of us enjoyed these games, and may not have noticed (consciously at least) that the women in them were being portrayed in a poor light – but then kids generally wouldn’t. I don’t think she’s trying to attack these games in particular, or gaming in general, but by pointing out these examples that we may not even have consciously been aware of, she’s trying to raise that awareness so that designers of future games think a little more about the roles their characters play rather than falling back on tired and often unfortunately sexist tropes. More thought about characters can only benefit these games after all.
I think a problem with this series and a few of her previous videos I’ve seen is that she’s essentially preaching to the choir. Whilst she does have some interesting points in the video, like the observation that forcing the hero to attack the demonised female with them essentially “asking for it”; she does nothing to really engage the viewer to see her points, except to present example after example, which gets a bit repetitive after a while.
For example, she mentions three games at the end of games which handle the topic of death quite well, but doesn’t even give a single sentence as to why they are good. I think this needed to a bit more prominence otherwise it just feels like she’s falling into the trope of the nagging feminist.
She outright states at the beginning of both videos what I’m going to repeat now: It’s okay to both enjoy something and to critique it. By analysing things made “just to enjoy”, we can gain insight into the culture that created those things. We do this all the time to old books, comics, and movies, why are games any different?
Though in that first video she focused a lot on older games, part of her point in the second video is “hey things might have changed since then, lets look… oh no, the damsel in distress and women in refrigerators tropes are just as alive and perhaps even more problematic now”. She’s also said that the third video on Damsels in Distress is going to be looking at videos that have inverted this trope, and looking at the Dude in Distress variation to see how they’re handled differently. I’m very much looking forward to that video.
It’s a bit frustrating, since this is meant to be a video series, it makes the individual videos themselves seem to have cases of tunnel-vision. But hopefully as more videos come out, it’ll come together as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. I guess we’ll see!
She makes a fine argument. It further strengthens the idea that Snake Eater is the best game ever. Works for me.
Perfect game 😀
You can tell she is a feminist coz she’s wearing a checkered shirt…haha I kid I kid.
But seriously, I agree with all her observations, but NOT with her over-sensationalised views. Words like “insidious”, “exploitation”, ” is just too over the top.
She even goes on to say that the men in games were sad or angry not because they lost a loved one…but because they lost their masculinity when they failed to rescue them….wtf? She’s a bit too bias for me to take this video as a serious argument.
Feminists are some of the most irritating, nonsensical people on the planet – they claim they want equality, when they get it, it’s not good enough. They want more rights than men and to be put on a pedestal. They harp on about misogyny whilst ignoring the enormous amount of male stereotypes in society, as well as wilfully trashing men due to a minority. There are both sides to a coin.
In reality THEY are the ones openly engaging in sexism, hypocrisy and everything else they claim to want to eliminate towards their own gender. This is why I do not give feminists the time of day. They are no different to any other irrational and hypocritical band of clowns.
Oh and in many ways, evolution simply hasn’t given women the same natural role as men. They serve a different albeit equally important purpose. It’s time they started accepting that. Humans are no different to any other species, male Elephants grow big tusks and females don’t, FOR A REASON! Figure it out, feminists!
Do you think women deserve equal treatment to men?
If your answer is yes, then you are a feminist.
What you are angry about is “idiots”. There are idiots from every single walk of life. They are by no means only in feminism.
Another question: do you think female elephants should be paid less than male elephants for doing the same elephanting job?
Those damn elephants… totally not an elaphist…
Calling it a epidemic is a little exaggerated I’ve never seen a cliché cause wide spread disaster.
Sit down and grab a coffee young lad. We’re about to discuss the entire length and breadth of worldwide history…
I guess the whole ‘Communism is evil’ Cliché is still causing problems a hundred years after it’s introduction would refute my statement.
lol. Simple fact is humanity progresses then regresses then progresses then regresses. There’s thousands of years of evidence. Sir Paula Abdul said it best in his tome with ‘I taketh two steppeth forward then I taketh two steppeth back…”
I like how many people think Sarkeesian “isn’t willing to consider other points of view”. I’m pretty sure I’d be dismissive of random internet dipshits who think they know just as much as I do in something I’m a stone-cold expert on.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
Well done! All the more so since she’s an expert on feminism not the analysis and construction of arguments. ‘I’m going to ignore your objection to that premise because I know a lot about ice-cream, so any argument I make involving ice-cream is infallible.’ That’s not how logic works hun.
However, when one person is willing to talk about it and the other is just wanting to call her a cock juggling thundercunt, I’m sure there’s some validity to it.
I suggest watching “Feminism Vs Facts” for an educated rebuttal
An excellent suggestion. I’d even recommend Anita watch it, she sure could use a lesson on critical analysis.
I haven’t seen her first video, but I watched this one and despite some sensationalist terms being thrown around, I pretty much agreed with her entire argument.
Heh you can tell you don’t frequent many youtube atheist channels, the false dmca takedown or bogus flagging is the most common response to theists realising that their position is so tragically weak it can’t sustain the tiniest amount of rational analysis, the only option remaining is to try and make it go away by any means necessary. The fine tradition of the Streisand effect means the video usually gets a lot more eyes than usual
Was waiting for atheism and religion to pop up as it always does invariably… it’s the new Godwins law of the internet…
It’d only be a godwin (or a weresmurf just to minimise confusion) if the comparison was invalid, in this case I was describing the similar tactics used so it seemed apt
atheism vs religion pops up that much in any argument on the internet these days it’s almost as inevitable in an online argument as one moron calling the other tosspot a nazi. So the godwins law comparison is apt.
Godwinning is more of an attempt to derail the discussion by saying something is bad by comparing it to hitler rather than a comparison of action though.
For example I’d say that “Invading Iraq to get their oil is just the kind of thing hitler would do” is a godwin whereas “The pogroms in pre-revolutionary Russia bear a similarity to the Kristallnacht” would seem to be a fair comparison
It’s also a point the discussion gets to where everything is absolutely useless and there’s no point carrying on as soon as someone brings it up. When someone brings up religion vs atheism on the internet I think you’ll find more and more people are just tuning the fuck out because it’s becoming so tiresome hearing each side thump their chests and beating their dicks off over who’s better than the other.
So, how does flagging this video to remove it compare to the recent much publicized pulling of the fire alarm by a feminist group to cut off a Men’s Rights lecture at the U. of Toronto?
They both suck, and they are both the exact same thing.
BTW, this video is fucking worthless. Save yourself a half hour, it’s simply a catalog of scenarios in video games where a man rescues a woman. Without any particularly insightful commentary or description of how this is harmful in any way.
You know why we find this? Because A) Men have a built in impulse to help women in trouble and B) plot writers are lazy. That’s it.
In a world where real woman are suffering tremendous actual distress from institutions such as forced marriage, people like Anita who seek to redefine Feminism as some bullshit media analysis bullshit should be ashamed of themselves.
She demonstrates amply that video games rely on the ‘man saves woman’ storyline, but doesn’t demonstrate why it matter. She fails.
“Mens rights and womens rights” are both bullshit in the long run. Why? Because in the long run its dividing genders down the middle. What we can hope for one day is for all to just be seen as ‘people’. But that won’t *ever* happen in our life time.
Not until we destroy the evil internet…
Probably because she always disables ratings/comments on her videos, People are sick of her acting as though she’s above criticism and review.
Very interesting show! I like how she shows that the issue isn’t the isolated case of every individual story, but that it’s a systematic exploitation of the women gender to act as a plot device.
You can exploit people, or animals. You cannot ‘exploit’ abstract groupings or categories, because they don’t exist in the real world.
Test of exploitation: can you find an actual breathing person who was exploited? If not, it’s just made up.
I’m not sure I really understand the point of the videos or who to blame for the “sexism”. I see the Damsel in Distress plot as one that is very cheap, old and unoriginal. The fact that it’s used so many times tells me that no one really cares that much about the plot of these games. It’s just a simple way of linking one part of the game to another so the player can do stuff with their controller.
While we’re on it when did the plot in computer games become so important and relevant? I’ve played my share of games with good plots but really I don’t see them as the modern story telling some people say they are. So maybe this simplistic plot is nothing but a reflection of the importance put on game plots.
Around the same time there was that whole “video games are art” push.
I reported her channel and her video she needs to be beaten. Not to mention she forgets to mention that in a game where 1 woman dies 50000 men die.
I hadn’t watched the previous video so I watched both just then. It’s certainly an interesting discussion, though I’m not 100% sold on all of it. Coincidentally a quote I saw on my FB feed today is relevant-
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle”
Because she’s obligated to wade through or have her viewers experience pages of death threats and stuff, right?
As an academic, she is obligated to be open to critique on her work. It’s unfortunate that people are jerks, but shutting down debate is the mark of a person who is not confident in the strength of their arguments.
She hasn’t shut down debate, and I’m sure if you ask her you’ll find she’s quite happy for her work to be critiqued. She is not, however, obliged to provide a free and unmoderated venue for debate. This is no different to how it works in all other academia: if you want to debate a paper, find a venue to publish your response. If they don’t want to publish it, find another one. The author isn’t obliged to give you one.
You don’t think that making sure that her main vector for dissemination is locked down entirely is shutting down debate? She has gone to great lengths to make the debate not happen and although it isn’t impossible, she’s done a good job in making it difficult and relegating the debate to places that are not easily accessible alongside her piece. The whole thing is academically disingenuous from start to finish.
What ‘great lengths’? It’s a single button click to disable comments on a Youtube video. The closest equivalent in academic terms would be the original journal not publishing rebuttals, which happens all the time. There really isn’t any negative academic element here as you’re suggesting.
That’s a false comparison. If we are going to use the academic journal comparison, then it’s like she has her own journal, publishes a controversial paper with very little evidence of research or referencing, and then flat out refuses to publish anything in the journal on the subject if someone else writes about it.
There’s no impartial third party moderating it. It isn’t as if someone else with no vested interest found the counter claim papers spurious and decided not to publish them. The person who has a vested interest in not being proven wrong performed an action to stop others trying to prove them wrong. How is that academically sound? How is that not suppressing discussion?
The person who makes the claim has the power to (and does) disallow counter-claims and you don’t think that’s a negative element?
You made the academic comparison, not me. I’m just telling you that’s not how academia works. You’re making a big deal out of nothing, there is no censorship or suppression going on, she just doesn’t want to host the trolls and violent threats on her video directly. If you want to respond, go nuts, there are plenty of places you can do it.
No, it isn’t how academia works. My point is that she is not an academic. If you take any steps to stop people responding to your work, you lose all credibility. She has taken steps. She has lost credibility.
She’s a journalist, not an academic. All of her smugness and bullshit arguments on TED talks and TV appearances aren’t going to make up for the fact that she is doing a disservice to a topic that needs to be discussed.
How about someone who’s not a feministic misandrist does this report? Her bias shows heavily and she cherry picks data and presents it as the only angle.