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Please don't go calling people racist, misogynists, or any combination therein. Don't start throwing around words like "white Knight" or SJW, these words are at this point used in a derogatory manner regarding this debate. You can discuss that these terms exist, but do not attribute them to any individual user or group of users on this website. Try to have a serious discussion about the topic at hand without resorting to personal attacks and we will all be the better for it. Breaking this rule will result in an automatic temp ban the length of which will depend on the comment you make. This thread started not so bad. It is getting worse. If you want to have this discussion on TL be respectful of your fellow users, we all live in the same house. Effective now: Page 21 October 18th 08:31 KST | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
Was about to say that, because I had to Google it up myself. Closest things I can find are topics about biological differences that can lead to statistical differences in priorities between men and women. Which really has nothing to do with what women should do, just providing analysis for numbers that are currently happening. Read a few accusations saying she believes as much, but that's about it. | ||
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Dunnobro
United States67 Posts
Closest thing is here: http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/791/print/all She talks about how Dutch women prefer working part-time/staying home. Real talk though who the hell who wouldn't? Lol i wonder if the male figure was different. But she never says it'd oppress men, just that women seem to prefer the idea and presents the idea that some might be too concerned with the "sexist" idea of stay-at-home moms to actually hear what women want. Reminds me of this okcupid thing i saw. Of the 15 guys who mentioned gamergate all were negative about it except one(he just mentioned it, not positive or negative) of the three girls two were positive and the one which wasn't was a journalist lol | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26094 Posts
What hope is there of reform of the gaming media if it exists in an overall shitty media culture? Does it even really matter reforming the existing big hitters? Create a new, non-corrupt site and its numbers and whatnot should be solid, if gamergate is about improved gaming journalism rather than discussing lying hacks and harassing them as nauseam. | ||
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Stijn
Netherlands363 Posts
On October 17 2014 15:46 Dunnobro wrote:And here's the majority of #Gamergate's take on sexism in gaming: The studies that say as many men as women play games have serious issues and I'm annoyed that people still use them as an argument. Christina Sommers is absolutely right in making the point that even if the 50/50 ratio is right, it ignores the fact that there's still a clear gender divide if you look at types of games (AAA $50 games vs. $3 iPad games). Both types have players from either genre, but I think there's a clear disbalance. That said, though, what doesn't follow from that is that sexism is not a problem in games. And I think that's where Sommers is wrong. She makes a segue like that at the beginning of her video when talking about these studies: "Feminist tech writers have seized on the study that video games have fallen behind the times. Too many games, they say, perpetuate a culture of sexism and misogyny." The one is unrelated to the other. Games can perpetuate a culture of sexism and misogyny regardless of how many men or women play them. Just the fact that more men than women play AAA dudebro shooters (for example) has no bearing on how significant it is that AAA dudebro shooters usually show women in a limited and often sexist selection of roles. Either way, Sommers misrepresents data just as much as the studies she cites. She extrapolates from a study on freshmen students at one college campus in the United States that there is a gender gap among adult gamers in general. There very well could be, but it does not follow from that study. Gender gap aside, Sommers asserts that games do not perpetuate a "culture of misogyny and violence" (though she said "misogyny and sexism" a few sentences earlier). Her argument is that there is no proven connection between violence and gaming. I do not agree that you can from that draw the conclusion that sexism in games has no effect (she makes that same assertion again later). Violence and sexism are two different things and manifest themselves differently in games. It also ignores that there is a large body of research that found that sexist portrayal of women does in fact have effects on how people subsequently see women. Next comes an accusation of cherry-picking on feminist's part. I think that by "cherry-picking" she means that Anita Sarkeesian (because she's obviously talking about her, considering the clips of her videos shown in Sommers' video) left out games that didn't fit her argument, and that if she'd have included those, it would have been apparent that sexist portrayals of female characters only happened in a small minority of games. I don't agree with that, because Anita Sarkeesian has highlighted literally hundreds of games in her videos, many of them high-profile and well-regarded. Even if this is in fact a minority of games, it still means that a significant amount of high-profile games portray women in stereotypical roles. Alternatively, "cherry-picking" could mean that the examples chosen out of the games don't represent the games. I often see Hitman cited as a prime example. To go into that specific example would take more text than would be useful for this argument, though I found this an excellent rebuttal. It's hard to say much about this argument without discussing individual examples, though. What I think it comes down to is that from Anita Sarkeesian's videos it is clear that in many games, women fill stereotypical roles that men typically do not fill, or far less often. Whether they also fill other roles (and they do, but far less often) should not be ignored, but the fact remains that there are a lot of female strippers, pole-dancers, helpless victims, etc in games, and comparatively little male variants of people in those roles. I think that's where the crux of the problem lies. It's not that these roles should not exist - the issue is that women get other roles far less often. Then there's a comparison with women's shows or women's magazines, and how they get criticism from feminist critics for not catering at men. That does happen, in fact, but the analogy is clear. I don't agree with it though. There are tons of tv shows that are either not really focused on one specific gender (late night shows, some drama series, game shows, what have you) or shows focused at men (Top Gear, some sports shows, stuff like that). The landscape in games is far less diverse, which is the problem feminist critics often attempt to expose. If there's a rich offering of men-focused games alongside games catering to diverse audiences or maybe a more female-oriented audience, that would be cool. But it's not like that right now. All in all, I don't think Sommers has a solid case. | ||
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Stijn
Netherlands363 Posts
- A Test Of Objectification Theory: The Effect Of The Male Gaze On Appearance Concerns In College Women - Depicting Women as Sex Objects in Television Advertising: Effects on Body Dissatisfaction - Effects of exposure to sex-stereotyped video game characters on tolerance of sexual harassment - Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers - Sexual Priming, Gender Stereotyping, and Likelihood to Sexually Harass: Examining the Cognitive Effects of Playing a Sexually-Explicit Video Game - The Effects of the Sexualization of Female Video Game Characters on Gender Stereotyping and Female Self-Concept - Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People’s Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions | ||
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Dunnobro
United States67 Posts
She goes out of her way to kill women in this game and claim the game encourages it when it does everything but. She very much cherrypicks and what isn't cherrypicked is mostly just made up or attributed to unproven pseudo-sciences. Here's the refutation of her flagship iirc: Overall she's really inconsistent and began this project without much, if any experience in games(admitted to not liking games and having to learn to play post kickstarter) with the preconception that video games are sexist, so she has a confirmation bias and has a goal she has to get to. Of course this will produce less than objective results. If women in gaming really feel they need this, can they get someone who knows what they're talking about? | ||
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Stijn
Netherlands363 Posts
I'd also be interested in your reply to my post. | ||
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Dunnobro
United States67 Posts
"Victim blaming" "Anti-feminism" There's maybe 2 minutes of him addressing any actual points made by thunder's busted videos to anita's videos and none of it being very relevant to the whole discussion. I mean you can see him getting BTFO in the comments. I realize numbers don't equal rightness but there's good points being made there. Edit: Wait I think I'm blurring it with his Sarkeesian Conspiracy video a bit. I do remember he tried to pin the hitman trope really hard and it was just ridiculous as the game discouraged the hell out of it which makes it unappealing, it isn't really a damn trope. also remember he got pissy about ad hominem and then insulted him instead of addressing the point lol | ||
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I_Love_Bacon
United States5765 Posts
You're having a serious discussion but doing so in a youtube video where no rebuttal is actually possible. This leads them to cramming in point after point and using as many bad ones as good ones in hoping it sticks. Then rather ever engage in dialogue, it's just more cop-out arguments from both sides that basically state, "Yeah, but" or "you're misrepresenting what I said/did." It's all boring. Trying to have a serious discussion through youtube videos is absurd. Sit down and discuss facts at a table or a message board. Which, for what it's worth, I've hardly seen anybody able to do. People have tried to organize actual discussions or interviews but they turn into either hatchet jobs or never get made at all because a party backs out.... which I think humorously enough almost proves GG's point completely by accident. And all of this; all of this, is still a debate that can be had at anytime and isn't even what GG is about. Videos and discussions about Anita are something that only the (I hate all these fucking stupid terms) Anti-GG'ers want to keep pressing on because it will still draw out hatred from some viewers that the SJW's can then use to continue to spin their narrative. I'd love to have all the serious discussions about gaming when the dust settles (about anything, feminism deserves no more special treatment than any other serious topic though and that's part of the reason so many gamers get mad seeing it repeatedly brought up) but having it NOW is stupid. It simply creates a new conflicting discussion that muddles the message GG'ers continue to push for. Fuck, it's so muddled I can hardly remember what I started typing at the top of this post. It's just all bull shit. Everybody wants to use this current GG vs Anti-GG and discuss anything tangentially related. That can be fun for sure if something strikes you as interesting or awry and you want to comment, but then it happens too often and now suddenly that's the new discussion instead of the one that's supposed to be going on. The goal post hasn't shifted for a while now and moving discussion back to Anita or ZQ or anybody else is pointless. (apologies for the rambling, it's 4:45am and I'm too tired to be proofreading this mess) | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26094 Posts
Or am I reading this wrong? On an added note, not just in the world of gaming, but I think a feeling of utter saturation and tiredness over the increasing prevalence of 'SJW's is stifling the actual debates and interesting discussion to be bad. Discounting trolls, I see a generation of people who are withdrawing into apathy because they couldn't be fucked with the drama and engaging into these kind of discussions. I do genuinely feel it's a real problem moving forwards. | ||
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I_Love_Bacon
United States5765 Posts
On October 17 2014 18:46 Wombat_NI wrote: This is why people are making out that gamergate is misogynist, in that Anita Sarkeesian keeps getting invoked, despite as far as I can see being only tangentially connected. As it's ostensibly against corruption in the professional games media, somebody who (despite me thinking she's an idiot) crowd funded her video series and whatnot. Or am I reading this wrong? On an added note, not just in the world of gaming, but I think a feeling of utter saturation and tiredness over the increasing prevalence of 'SJW's is stifling the actual debates and interesting discussion to be bad. Discounting trolls, I see a generation of people who are withdrawing into apathy because they couldn't be fucked with the drama and engaging into these kind of discussions. I do genuinely feel it's a real problem moving forwards. Oh it's a very real thing. OWS is perhaps the best example of that mentality. You had a movement with real ideas that would've realistically been impossible to avoid and would've been backed by virtually everybody in the country (the 99% they claim they spoke for). Then the SJWs basically co-opted the message and movement and took it over to push their own agenda. They don't care what platform they abuse; they've only got 1 tune and they'll play it anywhere they think they can get people to listen. Which is also one of the reason people hate to see it happen to gaming. While I don't like Sommers' video her last (I think) point is the one that made gamers fall in love with it: "Now if If you love games they don't really care about your age, your race, your ethnicity, your gender, your sexual preference; they just want to game." That didn't mean we can't talk about those things, but it does mean that our discussions should be about the medium FIRST and the other stuff a distant, distant second. | ||
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Dunnobro
United States67 Posts
There's just a lot of assumptions on what women want and trying to shield them from games instead of embracing them. "Oh no, we can't let this woman see another pair of breasts..." My sister for example really liked the Vivian James idea, or her character bio anyway. Still kind of hazy on the genre/story/etc. And I did too, I just feel like people are so concerned with critiquing they're forgetting they still need to create. Telling devs what not to do instead of what to do. | ||
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Stijn
Netherlands363 Posts
On October 17 2014 18:35 Dunnobro wrote: I saw that one a long time ago, essentially over half the video creates a strawman and explains it was a strawman and that's bad but that's what thunderf00t did. It doesn't really address his points at all, it just shames him and deflects the argument to where one wasn't made. "Victim blaming" "Anti-feminism" There's maybe 2 minutes of him addressing any actual points made by thunder's busted videos to anita's videos and none of it being very relevant to the whole discussion. I mean you can see him getting BTFO in the comments. I realize numbers don't equal rightness but there's good points being made there. Edit: Wait I think I'm blurring it with his Sarkeesian Conspiracy video a bit. I do remember he tried to pin the hitman trope really hard and it was just ridiculous as the game discouraged the hell out of it which makes it unappealing, it isn't really a damn trope. also remember he got pissy about ad hominem and then insulted him instead of addressing the point lol What do you think of my post about Christina Hoff Sommers' video? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26094 Posts
My crime in this instance was to dispute a moron's assertion that she as a straight woman could adequately (in fact better) represent the views of gay males in a campus LGBT community, because patriarchal power structures still saw gay men more rewarded than any female. I don't wish to diverge from the subject at hand too much, but I think people (especially in mainstream media) don't get it. There will always be a background noise of trolls in anything, but some of the unsavoury tactics are a response in kind to such shouting down of dissenting opinion via ad hominem attacks and techniques I view as harassment. | ||
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Dunnobro
United States67 Posts
On October 17 2014 19:02 Stijn wrote: What do you think of my post about Christina Hoff Sommers' video? Only point of real contention yet unaddressed was her use of the study, there was an article version of the view vetting that study for those kinds of claims actually iirc. Going to bed now though. And that I feel discussion on sexism/misogyny/misandry in games should be approached carefully and avoid sweeping generalizations towards all those involved. Really, I don't think a lot of the discussion is about sexism when the title is "Artists should stop being 13-year olds" and "if you like this art you're literally a pedophile" so much as using women's issues as click-bait. There's just so much negativity around that topic, it doesn't seem like any decent ideas stem from it lately. Just a bunch of fallacies, and ideals for games to mold themselves around. | ||
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trollcenter
362 Posts
The Zoe thing which got the whole thing started is not an outcry against women in gaming. It's not about people caring about her personal life as long as it's just personal, it's about the corruption in the gaming industry she took part in with her actions. It just happens that she's a woman so the conversation easily sidetracked into stereotyping gamers as misogynysts. The whole thing took over because what it revealed about gaming media, the fact that "journalists" act by nepotism and other interests that do not respect the consumer. | ||
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I_Love_Bacon
United States5765 Posts
On October 17 2014 19:08 Dunnobro wrote: Only point of real contention yet unaddressed was her use of the study, there was an article version of the view vetting that study for those kinds of claims actually iirc. Going to bed now though. And that I feel discussion on sexism/misogyny/misandry in games should be approached carefully and avoid sweeping generalizations towards all those involved. Really, I don't think a lot of the discussion is about sexism when the title is "Artists should stop being 13-year olds" and "if you like this art you're literally a pedophile" so much as using women's issues as click-bait. There's just so much negativity around that topic, it doesn't seem like any decent ideas stem from it lately. Just a bunch of fallacies, and ideals for games to mold themselves around. It's click-bait because there's not much to actually talk about. That's why people were so bothered by it in the first place. There's sexism, sure. There's also racism, classism, and basically any other type of 'ism' you can think of in games. But that doesn't mean they represent games as a whole or the gamers who play them. I can go watch American History X but that suddenly doesn't make me, Ed Norton, Tony Kaye, or anybody else who saw the movie a racist. What happens though is exactly what I talked about earlier. They want to have the discussion so they'll spin the narrative anyway they can so they can talk about the only issue that matters to them. It doesn't matter if it involves incredible leaps of logic or outright lies; they need a platform. My response anytime they try to shift the debate like that I'd simply say, "I didn't know the creator/s suddenly had to tell the story YOU want them to tell. It's their game and their story. Feel free to make, finance, or help develop your own or one that tells the story YOU want to tell then. God speed and good luck, sincerely." Then you pivot back to the actual point about journalism and standards about a Media you love/care about. You address the issue that they seem to take the most umbrage out without actually giving them new material to come back at you with. They they either have to repeat themselves or shutup. edit: Although you still also then hit the roadblock I mentioned. The sites that are being called into question have shown little to no interest in cleaning up. That just means it's time to ignore that shit and start your own/go to one that isn't shit. If you want to continue to engage them go ahead but I don't expect anything to come of it anymore. They're thoroughly entrenched and retreat for them isn't really an option as none have anywhere to go seeing as they're already the bottom of the totem-pole. | ||
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Defacer
Canada5052 Posts
On October 17 2014 16:38 I_Love_Bacon wrote: I don't care about Sarkeesian. I don't even care about any of these shitty websites because I've never read their trash to begin with. The problem is there are people who DO read those site. And when all those sites conform to the narrative that she and a few select others want to talk about the whole thing looks like a farce. Sexism does exist in games. So does every other "bad" thing you can probably think of. Art immitates life and there's plenty of it to go around. You want gamers to talk about sexism? Go right ahead. Nobody would stop you. You want to LIE about sexism in games? Good look having actual discourse with your supposed audience. This is my 5000th post. So it's long as hell. Sorry. First off, if you haven't watched a Sarkeesian video, or read any of the 'trash' on these 'shitty sites,' than you're argument pretty much ends there. You're admitting you have no idea what you're talking about, because you don't know what you're arguing against. You might want to rethink that position if you expect people to take you seriously. I've done A LOT of reading the past two days on GamerGate, ranging from mainstream (Vox, Deadspin) to more independent (Briebert, The Escapist, Vice) to the downright fetishistic (the kotakuinaction wiki). One of the things I also did was actually watch one of Sarkeesian's videos. I wanted see who this fear-mongering, deceitful, self-aggrandizing, self-victimizing man-eating harpie was that was dragging gamers and developers through the mud. Because hey, maybe GamerGate had a point that they weren't articulating well. Imagine my surprise when I ended watching a well-produced, even-toned (to the point of being dry), thoughtful analysis on the representation of women NPCs in popular, triple-A games. Yes, some of her opinions are just that — opinions — but they are all supported by game footage with multiple examples. She has catalogued and commented on [b]content[/b] she finds sexist, or at the very least, cliché, but she NEVER accuses developers or gamers themselves of being sexist. She never calls anyone a nerd, a neckbeard, a misogynist or a loser. Her most 'controversial' view is that the content, whether intentional or not, reinforces the sexual objectification of women, and that can negatively shape perceptions of women overall, for both male and female gamers. It's a pretty non-nonsense video that offers a feminist perspective on game content and promotes media literacy. It's not exhaustive, nor does it cover everyone's perspective. But a) that's not it's intent b) she, or any media critic, has no obligation to do and c) nothing does. Even though gamers might disagree with Sarkeesian, there is a lot they can learn from her. Namely, how to present your arguments in a clear and cogent, backed by examples, without digressing to lulz-humour, strawman arguments, heresay or inflammatory language. That there's people out there that find Sarkeesian's mere existence dangerous or oppressive is ridiculous. She's just a media critic. At most, her work might potentially draw new gamers and critics to the field, inspire more women to enter the gaming industry, or prompt developers to be less lazy and clichéd with how they design their game worlds. That's the 'worst case scenario,' if you consider those things bad. Her influence on games will never-ever-ever-ever be greater than, say, Bill Maher's influence on organized religion, or Naomi Klein's influence on the global economy. In other words, her direct influence on games will almost always be ZERO. There's a few ironies I experienced watching this video. First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves. She actually lists all the characteristics of sexual objectification — interchangeability, disposability vioability, etc — and almost everyone of the characteristics have been demonstrated in the language the trolls have using to attack her. It's like she's shot-calling her own harassment! It's pretty funny, and it actually adds to her credibility as an authority on sexism. Second, all the serious attempts to threaten, and hence censor and marginalize Sarkeesian have boosted her profile considerably. Originally, her series on games was simply one project out of many, which covered pop culture in general. Taken at face value, she would be just another media critic, with a feminist bent and a niche audience. She should have been just another fish in an sea of Youtubers. But attempts to terrorize Sarkeesian have turned her into a martyr for women in gaming. She now more intrenched in the industry than ever before; because trolls tried so hard to scare her away. Anyway, I guess I can thank trolls for introducing me to Feminist Frequency. I had know idea who the hell she was or what she did two days ago, but I actually found her videos pretty entertaining. At the very least, they reveal how laaaaaazzy and trend-based the major developers are. All this made me think the best and most productive action GamerGate could take is to produce their own series of videos, on how 'the Gamer' or 'the nerd' stereotype has been perpetuated in the media. Like, they could point out how in the movie The Incredibles, the character of Syndrome is a jealous, petty nerd when he should be celebrated as an industrious, hard-working, self-made man. Honestly, if someone started a Kickstarter they would get tons of money instantly. I'd watch it. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17026 Posts
"video game journalism" is an unimportant profession right up there with "sports journalism". When a video game giant like EA or BLizzard sends 10s of thousands of 19 year olds to their certain death in Vietnam in a war created on propaganda let me know.. GamerGate was a term that takes its name from Watergate. C'mon boys this is silly. We're talking about video games and 100% disposable income. This is not a corrupt President of a 1st world country. "video game journalism" is an unimportant profession right up there with "sports journalism". When a video game giant like EA or BLizzard sends 10s of thousands of 19 year olds to their certain death in Vietnam in a war created on propaganda let me know.. On October 17 2014 19:47 Defacer wrote: This is my 5000th post. So it's long as hell. Sorry. First off, .... Kickstarter they would get tons of money instantly. I'd watch it. its hilarious how reasonable stuff gets flamed so hard. happens on TL.Net all the time. see that Clutch interview at the last WCS-NA event? Kerrigan's ass was right beside his face... that was hilarious.. the giant poster behind him.. Kerrigan's ass was the same size as Clutch's head. it was great stuff. its stuff like this that will make Blizzard reduce its contribution to eSports. Producing proper content is too time consuming. that WCS-NA interview was hardly "proper content". the biggest influence on how women are viewed is how women are treated within your family. Actions within your family unit speak louder than the words video games are trying to feed us. Video games are a small factor. However small the influence happens to be; Sarkesian's theories are worthy of exploration. | ||
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Zocat
Germany2229 Posts
I think there should be a debate about better written female characters in video games. (Since this also leads to better written male characters and thus better games overall). I also think that should be done via "equal opportunity" (which exists). I don't think it's a financial save decision to spent those 100million for your company's next AAA game on something only in theory exists by now. No one knows if the market of "equality" games is large enough; that's speculation. A lot of small indie devs push into that direction, time will tell if they're able to gain as much traction as other successful indie-devs, thus supporting the theory that it's financial viable. I think a lot of people's problem with Sarkeesian is that she uses a lot of hyperbole and highlights things which are basically a non issue. i.e. the Hitman video. She is basically using the "You only shoot men as enemies in video games, thus vg are against men!"-level of argumentation. I cannot take a person seriously when he/she argues on such a level. I personally believe her point could be made without having to resort to hyperbole examples. On October 17 2014 19:47 Defacer wrote: First, I realized that her most controversial assertion — that the objectification of women in games can result in gamers objectifying women in real life — is probably the kind of comment that 4chan/8chan would most likely dismiss as PC-bs. But that exact 'theory' has been absolutely validated by the nature of harassment and threats levelled at her by her enemies themselves. [...] It's pretty funny, and it actually adds to her credibility as an authority on sexism. Following this logic and looking at what insults/threats pro-GamerGate supporters suffered also leads to the conclusion that being against the objectification of women in games leads to the same result. I also don't really agree that "objectifying women in real life" is happening, but more like idiots insulting people. | ||
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