Do Gamers Need Sarkeesian's Feminism?

[billhilly]

In case you need something else to be upset about, there's a lot of sexist insults in sports too "you swing like a girl", "you run like a bitch", "quitcherbichin, does you pussy hurt?", "nice shot, does your husband play golf too?", etc.

[billhilly]

Sorry, wasn't particularly directed at you.  Anyway, it does bring up an interesting point.  How, why, or do you address the issue of a group of men say on a camping trip for instance, ripping on each other using sexist insults?  If there are no women around to hear Bill accuse Jim of being on the rag for complaining about the canned beans, does it still count?

[Sal1981]

Writer posted a YouTube video

Agree with her or not, there are some serious issues in the gaming community that, if females or feminism is even remotely brought up, causes some significant backlash and outrage... not just, "how dare you!" but hoping that they are sexually assaulted and beaten (and yes, that happens amongst guys as well, but I know people like this and it is FAR more venomous when they aim it at women). Even if you disagree with her, you have to respect her imo for getting people talking about these type of issues.

I disagree with her banal "exposure" of video-games, why couldn't it be someone like Ana Kasparian, in a gaming sense?

The backlash against her banal theories on video-game tropes, however, I found surprising. Really, a beat-her-up game? Really? Makes me ashamed to identify myself as a male gamer. The attitude of such in-group thinking is quite disgusting. It's almost elitist, if not already.

[billhilly]

So in most every culture, there is the equivalent of calling a man a pussy for behaving in an unmanly fashion?  How would you go about addressing this issue?

[SilentFutility]

Yeah I should have guessed that you would come back with something like this.

Yeah I've got this persistent habit of telling the truth.

If you read my posts I have never stated anywhere that gamers need this feminism or that. I ONLY used the word 'oppression' trying to explain you that you misunderstand 'equality works both ways' statement. We are NOT talking about some oppression here. Hijiri is right I suppose.

So what are you talking about then?

You boys have no idea what is the subject here or what are we talking about. You are not interested in it either, you are just 'getting back'.

You have no ability to know what others are and aren't interested in. Secondly, you seem extremely interested in the subject here:

I don't give a fuck about Sarkeesian feminism or who needs it.

Thirdly, 'getting back' for what? I can only speak for myself, but nobody's done anything to me.

You people keep babbling that there is nothing here. My main point is about you claiming there is no problem.

I claimed the problem was of a different nature to how you think it is, not that there isn't one. Of course, the post you didn't respond to properly is to be dismissed as babble when you're the one claiming things like this that simply aren't true.

-Explain how is gaming world is cut out from human culture and that sexism doesn't exist there.

It isn't, and I have never claimed it doesn't.

-Explain how all that language of sexist insults IS NOT related to all this.

The dumb kids in call of duty are just that- dumb kids. They will use any and all slurs in order to inflict maximum insult, eg. calling everyone a nigger, a fag, a bitch etc. They are not singling out females.

-Explain your emotional reaction.

Which one?

Hell, just make one coherent post related to the subject giving an opinion, because what you produce here is just floating bullshit. And a bad quality one. Internet did it, this is the gaming world is not an opinion.

I have written nothing incoherent. You are reading what I'm writing, infering something which I didn't say, and are now attacking that, and because you are unable to intelligently respond to anything I've written you've incoherently and incorrectly summarised my opinion so that you can call it bullshit. Well, you got that part right, what you think my opinion is is bullshit.

Of course, this attitude is to be expected from you: "I disagree so everything you wrote is floating bullshit and not a real opinion". If it really were a "bad quality opinion" whatever your made-up definition of that might be, it should be easy to counter, yet you don't counter it, you tell me what I think instead of what I've written because that's easier to argue against, then counter that and dismiss it as bullshit.

[billhilly]

So in most every culture, there is the equivalent of calling a man a pussy for behaving in an unmanly fashion?  How would you go about addressing this issue?

I already did.

Almost all insults modified to gender are directed FROM heterosexual males to females, gay individuals of both genders or transgenders AND also to males by the same kind of modification of insults, because that's supposed to be automatically derogatory to a het male to be insulted with that kind of insult.

So all we need to do is change the way every single culture perceives heterosexual males, females, and gays then?  Should be a piece of cake.

[Jason78]

You boys have no idea what is the subject here or what are we talking about.

And just how many hours have you racked up on online gaming this month?

[Nonsensei]

Do you really not get the difference between reacting badly to ONE horrifying incident which is a crime punished severely everywhere around the world and reacting badly to some permanent damage done to female genital organs -so they couldn't feel sexual pleasure- that affects millions of women in the world.


A woman with FGM is considered as crippled by torture in developed countries and they are mostly immediately accepted as immigrants because they are 'refugees'. It's not just some physical thing done to person it is also a political, human rights situation which you cannot punish the people responsible from it where it is practised.

When a man is attacked the way you describe it's straight out a violent crime which would be punished severely anywhere.

None of this is a laughing matter, but you taking this stupidity as some proof to your position is worse.

I was using the ladies from The View as an example of how, in the here and now, sexism is a two way street and female -> male sexism is very much alive and well. My intention wasn't to start a discussion about which gender has it worse when it comes to genital mutilation. My intention was to illustrate that calling a man a knuckledragger is every bit as sexist as calling a woman a bitch, and was using the garbage disposal thing as a supporting example to show how the playing field on gender discrimination and sexism is more level than it has ever been, at least in my country.

And what happened to the rest of my post which was actually the response to your made up logic about the insult words. This.

This?

Nonsensei, are you aware that especially in its verbal evolution language constantly changes? And that if words stop holding their meanings or the cultural context behind them, they are usually get discarded by themselves and new ones take their place, BUT only live along as long as they function? If the words 'bitch' or 'nigger' didn't mean something real as an insult, if there wasn't a culture alive behind them, they would have disappeared long time ago.

I ignored it because it was based on a huge fucking strawman argument, just like anything else you post. You began by inventing a position for me, in this case that i think racism and sexism no longer exist despite my clearly stating otherwise, and from there launched into a lecture. I'm not gonna respond to that shit.

[Jason78]

You boys have no idea what is the subject here or what are we talking about.

And just how many hours have you racked up on online gaming this month?

Eh, either address my posts and the points I make properly or fuck off, stop quoting some sentences to write one liners. I have enough experience with online gaming as a female and yes I do game. It's not my fault that you are completely unable to make any observation or put that into some perspective.

What would you say you get criticised for more?  Your gender or your ability to play?

I too have played in teams in online games, and no one cares what you've got between your legs.  All they care about is that one idiot that's standing in the fire that's going to wipe the whole raid.

[Jason78]

But what's noteworthy is there was no correlation between negative feedback and skill level.

Emphasis yours.

(Aside from this being a single study involving one game) Why would there be?  I levelled a guy in starcraft the other day with mutalisks and speedlings and he accused my tactics of being gay cheese.  Some people are sore losers and some people gloat when they win.

Now do me a favour and think why it was the first question you can think of to ask a female poster, if how many hours she spent gaming in the last month after ALL these points she made from a more wider angle making an argument without filling it with her personal experiences. If I was a male poster, would you think of asking this question to me, at this point in the discussion?

Because you made the following statement:

You boys have no idea what is the subject here or what are we talking about.

I believe that a familiarity with the subject matter would help with the discussion.  And yes, if a male poster came in here pontificating I'd ask exactly the same question.  Because it's relevant.

[Jason78]

he study showed that regardless of skill, the rate of negative comments directed toward all voices stayed the same. And while the male voice did receive negative comments as well, there was a difference in language usage. The authors noted a "a clear pattern of negative comments associated with the female condition."

This deserves a mention as well.  It seems that male and female gamers attract the same amount of negative comments, but they are worded differently between genders.  That just seems like a language thing.

[Jason78]

Are we getting there or do I need to quote every sentence and make it large or bold for you to arrive to some clear point made in the article you insist in not reading or accepting?

Did you read this part of the article too?

Now, it's important to remember that this study is reflective of one isolated gaming environment, not of video games as a whole. As the authors note, "Caution should be shown when generalizing the findings of this study to other games or genres.

I don't believe that it's representative of the gaming worlds that I experience.

[Plu]

I don't believe that it's representative of the gaming worlds that I experience.

Odds are your gaming worlds are also not representative of gaming worlds as a whole. You not experiencing this is just as anecdotal as a single study.

However I have noticed in my time on the internet, both gaming and not, that gamers treat females and males very differently. Whether it's positive or negative depends on the person, but they are, in general, different. And that shouldn't be the case.

[Jason78]

Odds are your gaming worlds are also not representative of gaming worlds as a whole. You not experiencing this is just as anecdotal as a single study.

However I have noticed in my time on the internet, both gaming and not, that gamers treat females and males very differently. Whether it's positive or negative depends on the person, but they are, in general, different. And that shouldn't be the case.

I accept that my experiences may not be representative of gaming as a whole.

Gamers do treat males and females slightly differently.  One taunt that would make a male player tilt might not work so well on a female player.  In a competitive environment some players will use whatever little bits of information they can to maximise their chances of winning.  In a co-operative environment I've rarely seen men picking on women solely because of their gender.

[Jason78]

Really? Because it is your gaming objective to make an observation about an issue you don't accept that it existed in the first place? Generalising what finding, Jason? Article is a clear and introducing something. Do you respond to all research that you don't like its findings this way?

Generalising what finding?  I didn't write the article.  Why don't you read it and figure it out?

There is an experiment and a clear indication. And what's more, this is done by a fucking LAB. Have you ever thought what would the finding look like if people were gaming in their private house environment without knowing they are being observed?

The only data that I have to speculate on what people do when gaming and they aren't being observed is my own experience.

You couldn't even say, "Oh I didn't have an idea about this, this is interesting", that would be approving what I say, fuck forbid.

But I do have an idea about this.  And this isn't the kind of behaviour I see when I'm playing online.

You just don't live in this world, so yours is a different gaming world and it is cut out from every human reality and what other gaming worlds go through. Must be nice.

I wonder what the hell I'm doing wrong then.   If that study is to believed than I should witness some of that behaviour on a regular basis.  But I don't.  Even when playing World of Warcraft with my gf, behaviour like that was rare.