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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.
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Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)?
She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds.
The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm.
Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas.
I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
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On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone.
You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
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On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
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On October 19 2014 08:03 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 07:57 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 07:42 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election? It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right? And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election?
Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is:
"It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?"
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On October 19 2014 08:11 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:03 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 07:57 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 07:42 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election? It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right? And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election? Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is: "It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?"
I addressed what you said. You said someone who knows very little about gaming and cares even less about it should get to decide what's "problematic" with it.
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kwizach:
3 Points here.
1.
She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity:
+ Show Spoiler +
Verdict: Still a fraud
2.
So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
3.
Also she have been found with multiple cases of taking other people's work and pass it on as her w/o permission.
Sources:
http://cowkitty.net/post/78808973663/you-stole-my-artwork-an-open-letter-to-anita
http://victorsopinion.blogspot.be/2013/07/anitas-sources.html
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On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Show nested quote +Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests.
She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work.
On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist.
Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it?
Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
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On October 19 2014 08:15 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:11 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:03 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 07:57 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 07:42 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:
Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant
Its not irrelevant. Why should she have any say on an industry she is not a part of? She's not a consumer or a developer in the industry. Should Canadians be able to vote in the US presidential election? It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right? And what the US does affects Canada. Should Canadians get to vote in the US presidential election? Your analogy was terrible the first time and it still is. How about addressing what I said? Here it is: "It is very much irrelevant. She's a social scientist who specializes in studying gender roles in the media. She is currently studying video games. Why should she not have the right to produce analysis on a media she studies? And by the way, the video game industry has an impact on society beyond what goes on between gamers and their screens. You do realize that gamers interact with other people and have lives outside of gaming, right?" I addressed what you said. You said someone who knows very little about gaming and cares even less about it should get to decide what's "problematic" with it.
No. I said I don't see anything problematic about someone who knows a lot about gender roles in the media, and is interested in studying gender roles in a particular media (namely video games) after having already studied gender roles in other media (tv shows, movies), publishing her analysis of gender roles in that media after having done extensive research on the matter.
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On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc.
Maybe I'm not being clear. There is no "sexist" or "non-sexist" anything, because there is no consumer monolith to make such a clear, easy distinction. Only you as an individual can make such a set of judgements, and of course some might agree with you. But it's one of the reasons this whole sexism debate raging online is so challenging at times. If sexism were so easy to define, surely there wouldn't be so much contention between individuals?
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On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:kwizach: 3 Points here. 1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw
You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis.
On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:
2.
So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches.
She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making.
Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
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On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that.
See how ridiculous this sounds?
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On October 19 2014 08:32 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. Maybe I'm not being clear. There is no "sexist" or "non-sexist" anything, because there is no consumer monolith to make such a clear, easy distinction. Only you as an individual can make such a set of judgements, and of course some might agree with you. But it's one of the reasons this whole sexism debate raging online is so challenging at times. If sexism were so easy to define, surely there wouldn't be so much contention between individuals?
There does not need to be a "consumer monolith" to make a distinction between sexist and non-sexist elements. Your argument could be made for virtually any word in the dictionary, and more specifically any discriminatory ideas, be it sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism, etc. Yes, "sexism" is a word whose definition leaves room for interpretation. The same is true of "racism" and of the others. You can, however, be convincing in arguing for the existence of sexism in certain representations by demonstrating that they perpetuate "stereotypes of social roles based on sex" (taken from the Merriam-Webster definition of "sexism").
Do you agree that the statement "women belong in the kitchen" is sexist? Well, you can be sure that there would be plenty of people that would be ready to buy products with that statement on them, which means that waiting for a "consumer monolith" which would not buy those products before calling the statement sexist is pointless. We can clearly go beyond "sexism is subjective" in analyzing the existence of sexism in our societies.
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On October 19 2014 06:46 Trumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 06:36 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 19 2014 06:27 Trumpet wrote:On October 19 2014 06:13 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 19 2014 04:22 Trumpet wrote:On October 19 2014 03:56 WolfintheSheep wrote:On October 19 2014 03:41 Trumpet wrote:Just to give some perspective because this "just make your own games" "boycott the bad ones" thing is being said a lot... I don't think many feminists are calling for boycotts of games with bad elements. Most I see are trying to raise awareness about the issues in them so the developers can address is better next time around. Stuff like this from the creative director of Volition, company that made Saints Row: "I think it's fair to be called out on your shit," he told The Escapist.
"I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better." http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-09-02-volition That kind of comment from Saints Row staff seems exactly like the kind of thing that people are taking issue with. Saints Row is a game that's entirely about taking the "gangster" life and pushing it to the most ridiculous extreme. And that happens to involve strippers and hoes. It also involves taking a ball-gagged man and forcing him to pull a pony cart while you gun down dominatrices who are on similar pony carts. It's that kind of game. So when a creative director of the franchise says things like "we should do better", what does that really mean? I mean, the player character is already extremely customizable, where you can be male, female, fat, old, anorexic, white, black, Asian, purple, metallic gold. And there are a number of female characters in it that are interesting and colourful without existing as eye-candy (I think the latest DLC for SR4 lets you play as Gat and Kenzie, purely because of the popularity of both). It reminds me a lot of the complaints about Duke Nukem Forever, how it's juvenile, sexist, overly macho...everything that Duke Nukem is expected to be. Of course, it didn't help that the game was poorly made, but there's something silly about asking a game to clean itself up despite being exactly what it's intended to be. ...huh? Did you read the link? The changes you're scared of already happened, and you didn't even notice! He also praised some of the decisions the studio had made in regard to the sex workers portrayed in the game.
"It's very minor but it means something to me. We never call a woman a 'ho' in Saints Row 4, we call them sex workers. We respect that that's their position and we don't take a cheap shot at them for that. It's a minor thing, but it's something ... It's the right thing to do," he explained. In a game that has absolutely no connection to reality, I don't see that change as a big deal. Or like when you try to romance Kenzie repeatedly and she says "You have to wait til I want it." Establishes importance of consent and gives a female character agency over her sexuality. All in one line of dialogue that you probably didn't think twice about. SR4 is also entirely a VR simulator, and doesn't even have the same Gangster themes of the last 3. There aren't any prostitutes, along with pretty much everyone else, because the Earth blew up. And it's also the only game where "romance" is even an option. And I put romance in quotes because it consists of "Wanna fuck?" "Okay" (which, iirc, is almost Kinzie's verbatim), and it applies to every character in your squad. So, I mean, sure, you can say that they were progressive by inserting some line about having to want sex first. But at the same time every female character is also treated as a cheap one-night-stand...along with every male character (of course, the whole thing parodies Mass Effect, so it's another thing entirely). And SR3 is a game where you literally play as a toilet at one point, so arguing that being respectful to women would kill the immersion is kinda suspect. My point is that if SR4 didn't seem like PC bull shit ruined by feminism, then the changes critics like Sarkeesian are asking for probably shouldn't be viewed as a problem. Actually, my point was more that SR4 didn't make any of those changes. There are still "background females" in skimpy fetish outfits, all of the females are damsels in distress at one point, etc. Not even sure that they actually avoided the word "ho", because I swear that word was still used plenty. If someone's saying that SR4 was made to be more women-positive, I'd say that's just lip service after the fact, because you really don't see it at all in the game. I don't mean to give the impression that SR is the paragon of what games should be, I'm sure there's still plenty to be criticized about it. My argument is that these small time changes generally can noticeably improve the games for the people who care about the stuff without impacting the experience of those who don't.
That seems rather silly. Like, what are the changes to those tiny things supposed to do when the game is full of far more offensive things that are far more prominent?
Which, again, makes me ask what "we can do better" is supposed to mean? If it's changing "hoes" to "sex workers" but still having strippers spinning on poles in their underwear, that is pretty much just lip service without actually doing anything. It's certainly not enough to make someone who was offended by the game to stop being offended by it.
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On October 19 2014 08:34 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:kwizach: 3 Points here. 1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:
2.
So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches. She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making. Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And?
No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being.
You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code.
All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains.
Case closed.
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On October 19 2014 08:35 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point! You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that. See how ridiculous this sounds?
It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example:
Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010.
Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75.
Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451.
Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005.
Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355.
Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101.
etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
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On October 19 2014 09:06 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:35 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point! You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that. See how ridiculous this sounds? It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example: Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?"
It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
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On October 19 2014 09:03 Xiphos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:kwizach: 3 Points here. 1. She still lied about herself as real gamer by being dishonest here to gain popularity: + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw You are now completely changing the subject to something that was not being discussed. I addressed your claim that she was scamming people and debunked that claim. I'm not interested in whether or not she's a "real gamer", whatever that's supposed to mean. Not being an active gamer is irrelevant to her analysis. On October 19 2014 08:16 Xiphos wrote:
2.
So basically because a person graduated from a "political" major, this somehow is a roadblock to learn how to perform other tasks? Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers because they have passion elsewhere.
Apparently this is her passion but she doesn't want to code herself.
Instead of traveling around, she should demonstrate better examples to others by doing what she preaches. She does what she preaches by not being sexist and by not denouncing sexism. Plenty of folks have decided to switch careers and plenty of folks have decided not to switch careers. Her passion is studying gender roles - that's what she's currently doing on the topic of video games. There is no reason for her to switch to developing video games. That's not what she's interested in doing, and that's not necessary at all for her to be making the points she's making. Another irrelevant accusation that was not being discussed. It seems to be the case that she used images she found online without properly referencing their origin, yes. And? No the entire point is to prove that she is horrible human being. You went into semantic nitpicking and went full Anita apologist by giving her excuse of her own unwillingness to code. All evidences points to her being lying, scheming, unethical individual that only used gaming to gain political points and financial gains. Case closed.
So far, what you have to support your claim that she is a "terrible human being" is that she used video game screenshots without properly indicating their origin. While that's something to be critical of, it hardly makes her a "terrible human being".
I certainly did not go into semantic nitpicking, unless you mean that explaining to you why there is no factual basis whatsoever to the claim that she "scammed people" is "semantic nitpicking". If you want to ascribe new meaning to words like "scam", that's your problem.
I explained to you repeatedly why your argument that she should start a career as a video games developer is completely asinine. It is not relevant with regards to her interests and it is not relevant with regards to her argument. You never addressed what I said and instead proceeded to repeat your ridiculous argument over and over again.
"All evidence" points to her not scamming people and being honest in her desire to fight sexism. Again, you have no factual basis to claim that she scammed people and no factual basis to claim that she's only doing what she's doing for "political points" (?) and "financial gains", just like you had no factual basis to claim, as you did earlier in the thread, that Zoe Quinn traded sex for favorable reviews.
Yes, case closed: you do not understand feminism, you do not understand the study of gender roles, and you have a knee-jerk reaction because someone (a feminist at that!) has dared to argue that video games are not devoid of flaws.
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On October 19 2014 09:11 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 09:06 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:35 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point! You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that. See how ridiculous this sounds? It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example: Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity. The problem isn't when you ask "Why aren't there handicapped people in games?" It's when you point at specific games and say "You don't have any handicapped characters who are depicted positively, your game is a problem."
Sarkeesian's argument is systemic.
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On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point!
Has it occured to you that yours and Anita's liking may be different to what the vast majority of people's liking is? You even go to admit that she's militant about changing video games to her own liking. What if I don't agree with her analysis, in fact, I think it's full of shit? Or I don't get a say because I haven't got a gender studies degree? I'm just a basement dweller peasant white hetero male nerd who does not get his chance for a moral highground, I guess.
Also, you might want to look into her background with pyramid schemes etc. just to see where her real motivation behind "studying games" may lie.
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On October 19 2014 09:06 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2014 08:35 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:21 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 08:05 EtherealBlade wrote:Second, the reason she's making her videos is obviously to reach a broader audience than the people who read academic journals. Whether or not she's specifically interested in video games as a gamer is irrelevant - the point is that, as a feminist, she's interested in fighting sexism. More specifically, she seems to have taken a particular interest in studying and denouncing sexist gender roles in the media. She's worked previously on tv shows and movies, and is now working on video games. What exactly is supposed to be the problem? Perhaps she noticed that video games tend to be less studied than movies and decided to work on the subject. What is supposed to be controversial about this? Why does there have to be a knee-jerk reaction to any criticism leveled at the video games industry from a feminist perspective, instead of acknowledging that, just as is the case for plenty of other cultural vectors out there, there are plenty of things that can be improved in the treatment of women (and of other groups, for that matter)? She's not just studying the subject. If only that was the case, noone would know her name, as I'm quite certain there are many other studies published in academic circles about gamer attitude, online bullying and so on that don't go out of their way on a crusade against the evil basement nerds. The problem is she's determined to change even AAA games to her liking, games she does not even play, and never even heard of before she went on to make her videos. And the gaming "journalists" are happy to jump on the subject. When I read an interview with my favourite fantasy RPG developers, I don't want half of the questions to be about gay characters and them explaining how there's going to be warrior women in every village. I never asked for anyone to come and set their bullshit moral standards over my hobby, and we are approaching a point where every major title is more or less influenced by "SJW pressure", I can't find a more fitting term atm. Gamergate shows exactly how there's no consumer demand for their meddling. While the overwhelming majority will not care either way, they surely never wished for these ideas specifically to be implemented, especially when it's at a cost of other vital development areas. I don't mind these people having an opinion. I'm even happy if they dissect games and gaming culture from various perspectives, so we can learn more about it. But I'm not happy when some self righteous people are starting to get a firm grip on the industry through moral blackmail, purely for their personal financial interests. She's studying the subject and putting her findings on a platform which can help her reach a broader audience than academic papers. She is also a militant trying to fight sexism. When you say "change [...] games to her liking", "her liking" means avoiding stereotypical gender roles, avoiding oversexualized characters, and generally avoiding the sexist treatment of characters. The horror! I'm still not sure what is supposed to be the problem here. Also, arguing that she's only doing this "for [her] personal financial interests" seems to be clearly false, as she is visibly genuinely interested in promoting gender equality, as evidenced by her previous work. On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. Yes, that's true for almost anything, which is why your original argument isn't necessarily true - you'd have more of a point if there was a non-sexist version of the same product and if people overwhelmingly still bought the sexist version (yet, even then, that would not mean we should not fight sexism). And like I said, it's not harder to claim anything currently existing is "objectively sexist" than "objectively racist", etc. On October 19 2014 08:10 Millitron wrote:On October 19 2014 08:06 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 07:34 kwizach wrote:On October 19 2014 03:28 sevencck wrote:On October 19 2014 01:51 kwizach wrote:No, that's not necessarily true at all. The fact that people buy games which contain sexist tropes cannot be taken to necessarily mean that the people in question actually largely support the presence of those sexist elements and would not be buying the same games were those aspects removed or toned down. The option "buy the exact same game without the sexist elements" is simply not there. You're missing my point. You've defined those elements as sexist. That certain things are sexist or the degree to which they're sexist is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. You've defined the choices the consumer has as limited based on your own definition of sexism. No, I'm not missing your point at all. You said that the fact that people are purchasing the games that some are arguing contain sexist elements means that these people have "spoken with their dollars" and that they do not consider those games sexist/problematic. What I said to you was that this is not necessarily true at all. Many people may very well consider that aspects of a game are sexist/problematic but still buy it anyway, for example because they still want to enjoy what is considered to be a great gameplay experience despite its flaws on the front of its treatment of male/female characters. Beyond this point, however, sexism is not more or less subjective than racism, homophobia, etc. Identifying depictions of women which actively perpetuate stereotypes of social roles based on sex equals identifying sexism, whether or not it's recognized as such by everyone. You're saying an option doesn't exist for people who might view something as sexist to buy the alternative "non-sexist" product. I guess that's true for anything. Everything is flawed if you compare it to the non-existent flawless version. My point is that as long as sexism is partially subjective, there will never be a "non-sexist" version of anything for some consumer monolith to recognize, for the same reason that it's hard to claim anything currently existing is objectively sexist. And further, if you look hard enough, everything is "problematic" in some way. I've got muscular dystrophy. Should I go on a big crusade about how objectifying Wii Fit is? And how ableist it is since I can't play it? Yes, everything is problematic in some way, so we should really not denounce the objectification of women and, while we're at it, racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and anything else that can be called "problematic". Great point! You're an ableist. You just don't care that people with muscular dystrophy are under-represented in videogames. How many wheelchair-bound characters actually do anything in videogames? Practically no videogames even have any. That implies all videogames reinforce the stereotype that the physically handicapped are worthless. And you're defending that. See how ridiculous this sounds? It is true that negative representations of people with disabilities impact negatively the self-image of people with disabilities, and the image that others have of disabled people - that's not ridiculous at all. For studies on the topic, see for example: Beth A. Haller, Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, The Advocado Press, 2010. Beth A. Haller, Bruce Dorries & Jessica Rahn, "Media labeling versus the US disability community identity: a study of shifting cultural language", Disability & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2006, pp. 61-75. Shinichi Saitoa & Reiko Ishiyama, "The invisible minority: under‐representation of people with disabilities in prime‐time TV dramas in Japan", Disability & Society, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2005, pp. 437-451. Charles A. Riley, Disability and the media: Prescriptions for change, London, University Press of New England, 2005. Timothy Elliott & Keith Byrd, "Media and Disability", Rehabilitation literature, Vol. 45, No. 11-12, 1982, pp. 348-355. Helen Meekosha & Leanne Dowse, "Distorting Images, Invisible Images: Gender, Disability and the Media", Media International Australia, No. 84, 1997, pp. 91-101. etc. See also Foucault's work on insanity.
There are many genres with simply no place for the disabled though. How do you have an FPS that includes positive representations of the disabled? Try being stuck in a wheelchair during a firefight, you won't last long. The PC police would say that that's mocking the disabled. But if the game is designed in such a way that being in a wheelchair is not a disadvantage in a firefight, it's plainly ridiculous. Its a huge plothole. The bad guy can just hide on a different floor in the building and turn the elevator off. If he loses to someone in a wheelchair when he himself is not in a wheelchair, its absurd. Now, you might say "Oh, but you could have a scientist or a commander in a wheelchair in the narrative". In which case the PC police will STILL say that the physically disabled are under represented. They're stuck hidden away behind the scenes while all the important things are done by the able.
It doesn't bother me that there are few representations of handicapped people in videogames, because there's pretty much no way to shoehorn them into games without hurting some other aspect of the game.
I'm reminded of this quote by Stephen Fry:
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
But thanks for linking me to a bunch of things I can't read without paying money. Sure convinced me.
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EPT
