Misrepresenting While Female Part 1

This blog is about a week late, but to my defense I had just found out about this particular panel and so that's why I'm now going to be discussing it. A week ago the GaymerX2 convention had a panel discussion titled "Internetting While Female."

The focus of this blog will be to dissect what is wrong about everything being discussed in the panel. I'm going to start by linking 2 videos pertinent to this blog, and at the end 1 video that has nothing to do with the blog at all but is a kind of reward for torturing yourselves with the drivel you're going to be subjected to from this panel. Because of the length of these blogs, they'll have to be split up into parts, which I'll likely post in "one a day" increments. Hopefully "indie month" won't completely bury my blogs.

The first video is the panel discussion itself, which you can view here.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

If you go to the video, don't bother trying to leave any comments. In typical style, anyone who claims to want to have a discussion about a social topic actually means "You're going to listen to my opinion and that's all you're going to do" and so the comments have been disabled so as to prevent disent.

The second video is a response to this panel by one jordanowen42 on youtube and can be found here...

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

This video is at least twice the length of the panel video, and although I enjoy jordan's videos he does tend to go off on unrelated or needlessly long tangents. This video is over 2 hours long, so I won't blame you for not wanting to watch it, but I'm going to reference some things in that video and figured it'd be prudent to link the source. Some of the details in that video are important to this blog.

I'm going to try to time stamp my particular responses so as to make it easier to understand what I'm talking about and where you can find it.

So let's begin by talking about the Panelists. In order from left to right we have Carolyne Petit who is a reviewer/editor at Gamespot most known for her controversial Grand Theft Auto 5 review. Next to her is Katherine Cross whom I'm sure none of you know but to put it simply she is a feminist sociologist who is working on her PhD so I'm sure she has an unbiased opinion... right? Finally we have Anita Sarkeesian, whom I've discussed here before and whom we should all know. If you don't know her, firstly you should consider yourself lucky and immediately leave this blog to spare yourself the insanity. Secondly, if you have remained then you should know that she conned thousands of people out of about $160K to create a Feminist Theory based video series about the negative representation of women in video games, which has only seen 5 videos in about 2 years and isn't finished, titled Tropes vs. Women in Videogames. She also runs the FeministFrequency brand which has its own website and its own twitter page. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes Carolyne Petit and Katherine Cross are both transgendered people, which shouldn't matter but apparently does. Let's begin.

1:58 - 3:30
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In this section Katherine Cross makes her first mistake. She makes the claim that it is expected of women to bear their harassment but not to interpret it. Her mistake is that she's saying "we should be able to link our personal harassment to a bigger picture problem." That is typical feminist thinking. If a woman has any kind of problem, it's bigger than just her and instead encompasses much much more than just her. This kind of assumptive language is the real problem because it creates this idea that there is either a conscious effort on the part of whatever communal body is being discussed, or that communal body is so without agency that they are deeply affected by subliminal conditioning to create a subconscious effort to "oppress", "harass", or otherwise make life miserable for, in this case, women online. Harassment needs no interpretation, especially online harassment. It's not complicated, it's very simple. You'll either get people who disagree with what you're saying, whom people like all the panelists will just write off as being part of the second group, or you'll get the trolls purposely trying to piss you off and ruining it for everyone. There is no bigger conspiracy here.

4:03 - 7:15
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And here we go. This is where the misrepresntation starts. Carolyne begins talking about how, because she is an editor for a more mainstream gaming journalism site, she has to hold back on what she wants to say due to various factors, one of them being how people will tend to see her opinion as skewed. She goes on to say that there is a huge, systemic problem with representation of women in games, that gaming has catered to straight men for its entirety, and that straight men feel a sense of entitlement that causes them to lash out against any who would challenge what is perceived, by different people and in different ways, as "the norm" for games.

From its inception, the gaming industry has always been a business. What do businesses cater to? Anything that makes them profit. Businesses care about money, they don't care about who is giving them that money; they just care about getting money. For about 40 years the gaming industry has been making games and using the numbers they receive from which games of which genres sell the most as probably the biggest, but not only, factor in what they will create next. For about 40 years, men of all races and sexual orientations have been the biggest spenders, and users, of video games. What does this tell us? It tells us that the numbers dictate the trends, not a sense of entitlement, not "the Patriarchy", and not an effort (conscious or otherwise) to keep women down. Saying that there is a systemic problem with the representation of women in games is incredibly ignorant, insulting, and dismissive of the representation of men, animals, and ojbects in games. I mean, why is a frog being protrayed as weak in Star Fox? Did you ever consider the feelings of amphibians? No, of course you didn't because you're amphibist. Anyway, I'll touch more upon the perceptions behind Carolyne's opinions and whether they are skewed or not later, as it's touched upon again in better detail.

7:16 - 8:12
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This is where Anita kind of portrays the idea that people like her are necessary because if people like her didn't exist, then there would be even worse problems that no one would dare talk about. Ok, this is my problem with what she says. Firstly, you can tell that these 3 women take their opinions very seriously and place them on a pedestal, Anita especially. Just from watching her you can tell she only ever involves herself in engagements where she is the center of attention. The fact that she can say, and any of them can agree, that their OPINIONS, and I have to stress that because they aren't facts, should be used to change anything is probably the worst egocentric tripe I've ever seen. Absolutely none of them can even conceive of the idea that gaming journalism MIGHT just want to talk about subjects pertinent to the actual game, and not a personally conceived opinion that a game "hates" a group of people. Jordan says it better in his video that a game, or indeed any piece of media, can't actually "hate" on anything. It can contain themes that are representative of an attitude, but it can't actually have an opinion as it isn't a person.

To say that a game hates women is to say the developers or publishers hate women because they are the humans behind the game. They created every element of that game, and the game itself is just a compilation of creations working together to create an entertaining experience. I would absolutely love it if any one of these 3 women went up to a developer at ubisoft, or EA, or Activision, or Sony, or Nintendo and accuse them outright of hating women, because that's what they are saying when they say a game hates women. It's also really sad, yet expected, that Anita thinks people should either ignore the fun they are having based on game mechanics or level designs or stories so as to focus on the game's apparent opinion on women, or at least give equal attention to being mortified by said opinion. Last I checked, people played games to have fun, not to form an opinion on social topics.

8:12 - 9:02
=================
Here is where Carolyne just doesn't get it. She makes the statement that when people like the 3 panelists bring up the issues that they've invented inside their heads as not only existing, but also being a problem, that they are labeled as being the ones with the agenda instead of the game. This is followed up by Anita making a sarcastic joke/jab against detractors. Why is Carolyn wrong? Look at my previous point. A game can't have an opinion, therefore it can't have an agenda. To make the claim that they can is to say that the developers have these opinions and agendas. Is there any evidence anywhere that anyone can present that can legitimately prove that any developer has a hatred towards women, or is purposely trying to create a culture in which women are seen as inferior "objects" existing only for the pleasure of straight men? Or is the only evidence of this purely opinion based and gives inanimate objects their own agency while removing it from the entire gaming populous save for those with the mental awareness, who exist above the rest of us, to see these problems. If you're being criticized as having an agenda Carolyne, it's because the people criticizing you have noticed that you're bringing up problems the rest of them don't see. They're busy playing games for enjoyment while you're busy saying the games hate women. A game can't have an agenda, but a human can. So what you're attempting here is to create a situation in which either the people criticizing you for having an agenda are either A)Apathetic or in favour of the agenda you accuse the game of having against women, which you bear the burden of proving to be the case with actual evidence and not your "feelings", or B)Aren't as smart enough as you to see these problems and be upset by them. Which is it? Are you a hateful cynic, or are you an arrogant twat?

Anita's joke is merely meant to ridicule people who have brought forth legitimate arguments against people like all 3 panelists, and it's not surprising that the like-minded audience would laugh at something that really isn't funny.

9:06 - 11:22
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Katherine brings up the GTAV review that Carolyne did, and Carolyne once again misses the point entirely. Again, a game can't have an opinion or an agenda. It can't only be an amalgamation of themes that MIGHT create the idea of an attitude, but that can only be true if the developers want a specific attitude to be conveyed. What Carolyne, Katherine, and Anita don't understand is that even though Carolyne gave GTAV a 9 out of 10, that one paragraph she devoted to her feminism was a paragraph filled with absolute ignorance. Grand Theft Auto, the franchise, NEVER has you playing as a character that specifically hates women. It NEVER has specific misogynist themes. Grand Theft Auto as a franchise has you playing as the worst kind of human being possible.

The player character represents someone with absolutely no moral compass, capable of committing indescriminate crime at any and every possible opportunity. While the panelists will focus on the ABILITY to commit gender based criminal acts, they'll ignore the male half entirely, as well as the most basic premise of the Grand Theft Auto series and other games like it. For every hooker that a player may have sex with then kill to get their money back, that player has likely slaughtered hundreds of other people, men and women, indescriminately just with their car alone. Grand Theft Auto games are part sociopolitical commentary, and part absolute freedom and escapism. They are meant to be games where you can do the things you could never do in the real world. Don't think for one second that there aren't female gamers who play GTAV and proceed to rape and murder the hookers in that game just as much as any male player would. Those female players then go on to completely murder everything in their path no matter what gender, race, or implied sexual orientation the NPC characters may be. So, Carolyne, when you bring up that people are focusing on that paragraph and then going to your other reviews with a bias against what you're saying because of that one paragraph, it's because with that one paragraph you portrayed more ignorance of a game than your last 20 reviews where you discussed nothing about feminist theory.

And of course, Anita has to make another snide joke "What about the men?" With the like-minded feminist audience braying at her every word, showing how hypocritical they all are and can be. Because men aren't ridiculously portrayed in games right?

This will be the end of Part 1 as I'm reaching near the character limit. As a reward for making it this far, I'd like to share with you this video of an awesome metal cover of some game music. It's a cover of Aquatic Ambience (a.k.a. Coral Capers) from Donkey Kong Country.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[TFJWM]

I've enjoyed your blogs in the past but you are almost becoming as much of a whiner as the people you bitch about whining.

Keep up the good fight...

[DragonKnight]

You're free to never read another one of my blogs about this subject ever again, but I write about what I want to when it interests me to do so, so expect that this topic will come up again. If you like the idea of these people merely extending the "men are the problem with the world" mentality into gaming and, as you'll see if you read my last blog in this series, actively campaigning for censorship, forced inclusion, and pressuing of developers to cater to their agenda, then please continue to say that I or anyone else like me are just as bad as they are.

As for me, I choose to want to allow developers to make whatever games they want, with whatever themes/characters/character types they want as many times as they want to do it, free of being burdened by having to cater their creations to the agenda of people who fabricate problems based on nothing but their opinions.

[Darkstares]

So basically you've isolated yourself to just being an armchair critic who follows this hobby not out of seeing it as pure entertainment but instead taken on the role of being Mr. Serious 24/7.

Yeah, have fun with that.

It's amazing what some people do with their spare time. Maybe I should start a forum about coffee cups and how they can never get the perfect design. Either it's too small for my hands, or too big, or not balanced properly. Or maybe it's just that is doesn't dissipate the heat correctly. There's just something about them. Hopefully I can find others who enjoy this 'passion' of mine.

[WilliamUsher]

I'd just like to toss in a point -- in regards to people talking about "the industry was always male-dominated" -- and say that a little research goes a long way.

There were many female developers with a strong presence in the industry throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the best selling games throughout those times were designed by females, from the Gabriel Knight series to Kings Quest and Quest for Glory.

The thing was is that the market shifted; budgets balloned as the tech became more expensive and larger teams were required as 3D became a large focus of the industry. The sales no longer supported the efforts and its why games like Kings Quest, Roger Wilco and other point-and-click series faded out and died away. It was nothing against women, as it happened across the board and even greats like Tim Schafer and crew were affected.

Now this isn't to say that there is no sexism in gaming and that women make up in equal amounts the men who are in the game design market, but it is to say that it wasn't as if female game designers never existed.

Even more than that, they still have a strong enough presence within a niche demographic; companies like Her Interactive and Lexis Numerique still cater games to the female audience. Much like in the late 90s, the market just isn't the same size as the AAA market; female gamers just don't fancy dumping 60 bucks into a game like their male counterpart, but they will spend around $20 on a decent adventure title or two that fits their tastes.

I just find it sad that for the games that do cater to the female audience... they go mostly ignored by the so-called social justice warriors, as they seem keen on attacking games more-so geared toward the male demographic.

[DragonKnight]

It's the same attitude that I'll discuss in the 3rd part of my blog series about this topic. Basically, you'll see the attitude of sarcasm around the idea that people who want a change should actually do something about it rather than just complain to others who are in a position to do something that the complainers want.

When you tell an SJW or a Feminist to "make the games" they want, they'll tell you you don't understand, ridicule/shame you with sarcasm for even suggesting that they get into making games themselves, and then the point is completely dismissed. You're seen as an ignorant person at best, a misogynist at worst.

What they want is to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to complain about some perceived problem, and complain that more aren't talking about it, and complain that more aren't outraged about it like they are, but the absolute most they are willing to do about it is run their mouths.

I've seen so many people come up with lists of games with strong female protagonists, or development studios that are either founded/run by, or made up mostly of, or fairly inclusive of women and all of that doesn't matter at all. When the SJWs and Feminists have targeted an area as having a systemic, pervasive, "anti-woman" problem, then that area is wholly the problem no matter how much evidence you have to the contrary and no matter how many women themselves argue AGAINST the SJWs and Feminists.

They don't want those $20 decent adventure titles like the majority of female gamers choose to spend their money on. They want gender bent $60 AAA games and they will never provide a legitimate reason as to why that goes beyond "because I want it" and they'll never do anything more than that.

[BillytheBarbarian]

Whatever, there are tons of games geared towards the gay community. Gay people make games and have for years. Sega's Nights, Rumble Roses, countless Barbie games across all platforms, Space Channel 5, Mass Effect, etc. God of war has a near naked Kratos where the player can stare at that candy ass all the way through the series. You can now get that in HD. Gears of War could be seen as gay propaganda since women weren't playable characters until the third installment. It's all in how anyone wants to spin the politics.

Gaming was only primarily geared towards boys in the 16 bit era and prior. Since then even before Sega dropped from hardware game publishers worked hard to get gamers of any type. Boys, girls, men, women, black, whites, Hispanics, and blue hermaphrodites.

Doesn't anyone remember Phantasy Star on the Master System? Female lead character, a hulking brute Odin, a fancy Wizard Noah whose gender wasn't clearly identified, and a kitty cat that could turn into a flying horse...this was 1987.
Seems a bit feminine if you ask me and still a fantastic game.

Most Rpgs now that feature getting married or falling in love don't discriminate. Fable you can get men to fall for you. The Sims you can have lesbians in a heart bed.

Games are a billion dollar industry. Games are made to enjoy a story or an escape. Who cares who games primarily cater to when everyone is covered?

All in the eye of the beholder.

[DragonKnight]

"Whatever, there are tons of games geared towards the gay community. Gay people make games and have for years. Sega's Nights, Rumble Roses, countless Barbie games across all platforms, Space Channel 5, Mass Effect, etc. God of war has a near naked Kratos where the player can stare at that candy ass all the way through the series. You can now get that in HD. Gears of War could be seen as gay propaganda since women weren't playable characters until the third installment. It's all in how anyone wants to spin the politics."

That is an excellent example of how someone can twist the current state of gaming to fit any agenda. I was reading it and I was like "wow, if you think about it, that actually makes a lot of sense."

Kudos.

[Christopher]

***Next to her is Katherine Cross whom I'm sure none of you know but to put it simply she is a feminist sociologist who is working on her PhD so I'm sure she has an unbiased opinion... right?***

No more so than the author of this blog... right?

[DragonKnight]

I can't deny that I have a bias against feminists, but the difference is that I'm not trying to prevent them from expressing themselves, they are trying to change how developers express themselves. I'm under no illusion that anything I say here is going to change them, they are under the illusion (closely coming to reality) that their opinions are necessary and should be used to change the industry to suit what they approve of.

[Christopher]

I think that blanket statement of them trying to change how developers express themselves is a bit disingenuous to many level-headed feminists.

And, even then, how is that different than what you said yourself?

***From its inception, the gaming industry has always been a business. What do businesses cater to? Anything that makes them profit. Businesses care about money, they don't care about who is giving them that money; they just care about getting money. For about 40 years the gaming industry has been making games and using the numbers they receive from which games of which genres sell the most as probably the biggest, but not only, factor in what they will create next.***

So, it's okay for businesses to tell developers what to do, but not for someone to say what they want?

[DragonKnight]

"I think that blanket statement of them trying to change how developers express themselves is a bit disingenuous to many level-headed feminists."

Then you haven't seen enough. Trust me, I have more to show for what I'm saying. I can't say that I'm speaking about literally every feminist that exists, but at least in the more vocal feminists that discuss gaming, what I've said is putting it mildly.

"So, it's okay for businesses to tell developers what to do, but not for someone to say what they want?"

Uh, yeah when game development itself is a business it becomes the business telling itself what to do. Developers don't operate for free and they have business models. Every development studio is itself a business.

Plus, who said that people can't say what they want? If it was a simple matter of people just talking, then their opinions could be critiqued and dismissed. This isn't just talking, this is shaming, this is projects designed to create controversy and problems. In the third part of my blog series you'll see Anita Sarkeesian actually admit that part of her goal is to get people to see that what she thinks is a problem sucks.

That's beyond "saying what they want" that's attempting to manipulate opinion to shift a community into supporting an agenda based around a problem that, up until this point, most weren't even seeing or weren't concerned about because they were too busy enjoying games.

[Christopher]

***Plus, who said that people can't say what they want?***

You say that a lot because you think that someone expressing their opinion = demanding it.

See your previous comment of "Then you haven't seen enough. Trust me, I have more to show for what I'm saying."

Apparently you know more than anyone I've ever known to know that these three people discussing women on the Internet just want to change how developers think.

***In the third part of my blog series you'll see Anita Sarkeesian actually admit that part of her goal is to get people to see that what she thinks is a problem sucks. ***

Okay.... so what? You want people reading your blog to see that her opinion and words aren't deserving of attention, meaning you want me to agree with your opinion, right?

Doesn't seem any different to me.

[DragonKnight]

See now you're just assuming a lot.

"You say that a lot because you think that someone expressing their opinion = demanding it."

Wrong. There is a difference between saying something like "I wish I could play more games with women in them" and "The gaming community is filled with hateful misogynists whose attitudes are fostered by the development scene who consistently poorly represent women as nothing more than objects."

The former is an opinion, the latter is an accusation and an indictment/gross generalization against a community of millions. I'm saying the latter is wrong.

"Apparently you know more than anyone I've ever known to know that these three people discussing women on the Internet just want to change how developers think."

If you want to make things up, that's your prerogative. I never said, nor implied, that I "know more than anyone" about this subject. I said that YOU haven't seen enough about the topic. You made the claim that I was being disingenuous and I responded to it by telling you that I have more to show, not that I know more than everyone.

"Okay.... so what? You want people reading your blog to see that her opinion and words aren't deserving of attention, meaning you want me to agree with your opinion, right?"

Now you're cherry picking, and assuming again. I don't care if you agree with my opinion. I'm stating mine that people like these 3 panelists are painting the entire game industry and gaming community the same way Jack Thomson did for different reasons. If I want anyone's opinions to coincide with mine, which I know won't happen, it'd be developers.

The entire purpose of this blog series is to show how these 3 women and their colleagues invent problems to use against the gaming community and developers at large. Problems they will insist on trying to make other people see even when they don't, don't want to, or couldn't care less. The purpose is to show that people like this are trying to frame how development, and even discussion, is to be done and THAT'S wrong.

It isn't "opinion" to try and censor forums from discussing things, as you'll see in part 3. It isn't "opinion" to say that the gaming community is so devoid of agency that developers are conditioning gamers the world over to be abusive to women. It isn't "opinion" to be paid money to say these things, it's a professional stance, a platform. Agree with me or not, but don't you think people should know that there are "professionals" out there insulting them and the hobby they love based on nothing but their own opinion on how things should be, based in a foundation that's nearly fascist in its ideals? Unlike the panelists, I'm just putting my opinion out there for people to read, I'm not trying to force down people's throats. Guess that's why I haven't won any awards.

We as a community rallied against the opinion that games caused us to be violent. Why should we not rally against the opinion that games cause us to be abusive to women? Especially when there are plenty of female gamers who have shown no inclination towards the opinions of people like the 3 panelists?

[Christopher]

*** I'm stating mine that people like these 3 panelists are painting the entire game industry and gaming community the same way Jack Thomson did for different reasons.***

No, they aren't.

You have said multiple times that social issues don't belong in games, which is the same as what you are saying these women are doing. They say certain social issues should be better represented in games. You say the opposite.

I see no difference between your arguments.

[DragonKnight]

"No, they aren't."

Yes, they are. Well, 2 of them are. Carolyne I don't think has yet ever made any piece of writing indicating that games affect life, but Katherine Cross' entire career is based on studying it and Anita Sarkeesian just said in her own recent video and touched on it slightly in the panel that games impact the behavior of people in real life.

She said, and I'm paraphrasing from her video on Women as background decorations "Ironically, and somewhat paradoxically, those who believe they aren't affected by video games are more likely to uncritically internalize the themes present in them."

That's just another way of putting everything that Jack Thomson said, but about sexism and misogyny instead of violence. Jack Thomson was debunked as an idiot, Anita Sarkeesian is receiving ambassadorial awards and is rumoured to be working on games as a consultant specifically for her feminist views.

You see no difference in my opinion that social issues have no place in games, and their opinion that they do and should be better represented? The mere fact that those opinions are at complete odds with each other isn't a difference to you?

And saying that I'm saying "the opposite" implies that you think I'm saying that women SHOULDN'T be better represented in games. I've never said nor implied that anywhere.

I've said, and have from the very beginning, that developers should be free to create whatever they want. That games DON'T impact real life behavior or thought patterns (barring a pre-existing mental condition). Now I've added that these women are trying to force the opinion they have on what is a problem on the gaming industry and trying to make everyone see the problems they do, consider them problems, and take up their cause to censor discussion (which Anita flat out says in part 3) and change development culture to suit their agenda.

Developers shouldn't develop based on a social agenda. It's anti-freedom of expression (assuming they aren't specifically creating to support said agenda, in which case it's not anti-freedom) and ultimately pleases no one but the people with an agenda.

[Juste_Belmont]

So two men and a woman who admitted that she didn't really play very many video games, yet endeavored to make a whole "series" on the topic have a panel about women on the internet? Insanity masquerading as sanity is still insanity.