How searching for misogyny in video games might be more damaging

Misogyny in video games has been a hot button issue for quite some time. But never before has it been so rampant, like a wildfire spreading uncontrollably from one blog post to another, engulfing all in its path. Watching the past month unfold through Twitter, Tumblr, gaming sites and articles, has been daunting, exhausting and filled with WTF moments that have left Janci, and many others, speechless. The cry for diversity and better representation of women in games has been loud and present but seems to be raising its voice as of late. As someone who has been playing video games since the age of three Janci finds that confusing, misdirected and unfounded.

[DanielGearSolid]

The fact of the matter is...

Feminists can easily promote games that have diversity, and motivate their following to buy those games...

But instead they complain about the most popular games. Because it will get everybodys attention fixated on their "noble cause" or the "abuse" they have to endure. They want the attention... It pays the bills.

[NewMonday]

yes!

instead of talking about Byond2Souls, Gravity Rush, Child of Light they just complain, and nerds eager to impress the girls try to show off how feminist they are.

[00]

Let alone the fact that there are many real female developers that contribute to gaming just fine.

[aerisbueller]

yes, and they pick and choose, like their ringleader Anita Sarkeeezzaiezeeiisiaen (sp?), complaining about last year's E3, and how all the protagonists in the major games were male, yet didn't have a word to say about the completely unsexualized female fighters in Titanfall or 1886 on equal footing with the men.

Yes there are tropes out there that are overused, but the (m)enemy are always fanboy worshipping characters like pre-stripper suit Samus, and Ellie, and Glados. So they should stop trying to make it out to be some male vs female bullsh!z, and just have a little bit of intellectual honesty for a change...you know, like people who actually believe what they say?

[annoyedgamer]

Mature female lead in Tomb Raider? Meh. HOW DARE SHE GET CAPTURED!!1!

No female characters in AC: Unity? SEXIST!!1!1

[SilentNegotiator]

They're stuck in a paradox anyway; they want everyone to believe that 11 out of every 10 women are rape victims whilst also complaining that women are misrepresented as victims.

[Spotie]

It reminds me of how colleges are now so eager to be seen as doing something about the issue of rape on campus that many are being sued for essentially railroading suspects. It's gone so far that, despite evidence to the contrary, some of the guys have had to drop out due to their reputations being shattered on campus.

It's fine to want to prevent bad things from happening. But in some areas, that zeal is going too far. It'll most certainly backfire, which usually creates something of the opposite effect.

Not saying it'll increase the misogyny, but it will make accepting even the notion of it that much harder when the proponents spend most of their time bitching about bad examples and accusing the innocent.

[aerisbueller]

It'd even more meta than that. They personify the damsel in distress in need of rescue by turning this into a boohoo, save us, type issue.

The solution is for frustrated female gamers to become devs, and if it's too hard to break into the industry, then go with crowd funding. There isn't an excuse anymore. And if you don't want to go through the trouble of learning how to make a game, let the people who have worked hard to get into a game design position make the games and characters they feel like making and vote with your wallet or purse (either of which is a perfectly valid choice). If you want equality then relegate your whining about sh!tty uncreative character design to the comments sections like men do

[EdoubleD]

Feminism: looking for problems where there is none.

[mrbojingles]

So there's no problems or inequalities for women? In the games industry or as characters in video games?

What about blacks, gays, latinos, etc?

Why am I even asking you? If you type a comment saying feminism makes up all of its "problems" then I don't know why I'd expect a rational dialogue. But I'll leave this here anyway. Why not?

[kingdip90]

There are problems and inequalities for all demographics. This is also true of white males.

Yes historically social injustice has been from white males towards the other demographics and there has been great strides to combat that and it has been more successful for some groups than others. I hate prejudice in society and I hate people not being treated as equals.

Perhaps my personal feelings on this issue stem from the fact that I myself am a mixed race male who at the hands of females have suffered assaults similar to the assaults "feminist" groups tend to villainize men for. I believe everyone is equal and I would never go out of my way to minimalise any demographic.

Because I am personally very accepting of everyone as evenly as possible I expect that people who are striving for societal equality would like me consider the feelings of everyone.

While looking for misogyny in gaming I feel people looking for equality should consider any negatives toward all demographics in media and I feel that anybody who looks purely at their own group is missing the point of equality all together.

I'm sorry if you disagree, but anyone that labels all men as pigs who want nothing more than to objectify women and kill stuff is offensive. Anyone who labels all "social justice warriors" in a negative light is offensive and anyone who labels "gamers" as white me virgins is offensive. All those examples have missed the point of feminism and equality all together.

[ShaunCameron]

What would a feminist know about "rational dialogue?" Most of what feminism stands for is motivated by envy.

[scark92]

I think its just a few radicals that are making Feminism look bad, the real Feminists are really overlooked, the feminists such as Anita and Co I would say they do what they do for dare I say revenue or superiority over men.

I love how these 'feminists' always pull the misogyny card when they are the true gender hating group, they hate men but thats just fine because they are women.

[morganfell]

As I posted earlier, here they are on the attack at comics and their related arguments blow up in their face as Maddox blows a hole in their lack of reasoning. His smackdown applies readily to gaming.

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

[NewMonday]

LOL!

love this guy, instant favorite.

[morganfell]

Some of his stuff is hilarious. I have been following him for over a decade, every since the infamous I am better than your kids piece. Note you need to click on the second part at the bottom. I was crying I was laughing so hard the first time I read this:

http://www.thebestpageinthe...

[scark92]

Yeah Maddox killed it xD

[HighResHero]

Mega-pwned. It's nice to see more people calling out these mentally ill, hypocritical, manipulative psychos.
They call for freedom of speech, yet try to pick and choose what is appropriate. They throw words like bigot around like it's going out of style but have no tolerance for differing viewpoints. The definition of bigoted.

[WeAreLegion]

I am so tired of people looking for problems, whether it be sexism, racism, or classism.

Yes, these problems do exist. No, they are not everywhere. Just cool it with the accusations.

Good article.

[mrbojingles]

So there are no problems with how women, blacks, gays, etc are portrayed in games? Or in the games industry?

[WeAreLegion]

You missed half of my comment, I think.

Edit: Thanks for the comment, Dr. Crane. I listen to your show every morning.

[SilentNegotiator]

"these problems do exist. No, they are not everywhere"

Oh yeah, I TOTALLY see where you got "So there are no problems" from. And note, no edits (as of 8 min) on Legion's comment; that part was ALWAYS there.

Unless you were trying to illustrate his point of looking for problems that aren't there. In which case, nice work.

[CyrusLemont]

I just caught up in all this garbage. It needs to stop. Right f*****g now. Purely criticising the portrayal of women or men in any media can easily be twisted into your own agenda and bias when you ONLY point out the aspects you want, regardless of whether there are few or many. There is no context in the narrative or position of characters in these arguments made by fem 'fighters'.

People with agendas like this are already manipulative pricks that have the intention of creating conflict. How about instead of trying to argue your points to push your agenda, you do something much smarter. You look for a way to argue against your own criticisms to see if they are truly substantial and hold any real merit. Then post your findings so people make the decision for themselves. All they're doing now is de-educating people who seek knowledge. Then again, it's very likely that the people who wanted this information posted, also wanted it to boost their agenda. It's the people in the crossfires I get concerned about.

Not one argument I've seen has any solid footing. There are only wants I've seen, some I could agree with, like more lead female characters. The current lack of this has nothing to do with misogyny though, it has to do with preference of the developers. Preferring a man over a women for a character, DOES NOT mean you hate females. F**k. How thick headed can you get. I'm surprised misogyny is the word being used in all of this. Men love women. Certain women may get sexualised in a given context, but what the f**k has that got to do with hating women? It's the creators preference.

It's like these people think because certain women are sexualised in video games, that's how all males see women haha.

Get f*cked.

[CyrusLemont]

I should also add that there is no such thing as a collective dislike/hate/love for something from one specific gender/race/culture.

You know what we call that?

Stereotyping.

There are literally thousands of counter arguments against empty points. The whole thing is stupid, and I'm getting major butthurt over the whole thing because I LOVE videogames, and I LOVE women. Sorry that I also enjoy...

BEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWBS.

[Scatpants]

I wish women would just go back to not playing video games rather than whining about them constantly.

[ShaunCameron]

They're whining about them because well, "how dare men indulge in something that doesn't involve them?"

[CyrusLemont]

Also Anita Sarkessian is a downright d**k. All she is pushing is misandry and hatred against video games for not being her definition of correct or presented in the way she thinks they should be. She knows nothing about the video games she argues about. She doesn't give a sh*t about the context of the content she posts either.

Jesus, she'd probably think Quentin Tarantino was in the slave trade and hates black people if she watched Django Unchained lol.

It's unfortunate she is classified under the same roof as other feminist movements who actually try and get something good done.

[WeAreLegion]

"Well Said" bubble to all your comments here.

[CyrusLemont]

WARNING: TL;DR response

Thanks haha. I am sorry if I have come off as being spiteful/crude/rude etc. in any way. It's just that I feel very strongly against this kind of stuff. I've been gaming since I was 4, across all different platforms, and it has never influenced me in a negative way or changed my outlook on women. When the games I play, and the culture I love is attacked, I AM being attacked. I hope all gamers feel this way.

We are a community, and us, as well as the games we love to play and the developers who make them are coming under fire with attempts to oppressing creativity for the sake of someone elses hateful perspective and desires. We are treated like we're brain dead and not aware of gender roles within video games that we play. We are aware, we just aren't so sensitive to it. If these people are so sensitive, maybe they shouldn't be playing those games.

These people attacking us don't care about the games, they care about getting their way. Once that's done, they'll move on to the next thing. For us it's about taking a stand, drawing the line and saying no, we won't be strong armed. Certain people are already negative, and draw from them as a means to project their opinions. These people forget that gaming is a choice, what it has to offer doesn't apply to you if you don't like it.

THE WORST PART ABOUT ALL OF THIS THOUGH; There are going to be threats, violent responses and personal attacks to these terrible people. This is going to give them a reason to further generalise how our community is and say that the state of the supposed ENTIRE gaming community doesn't like the fact there we're making a difference or starting to change things or starting to blah blah blah more bullsh*t etc. You get what I'm saying.

I fear that, because it's the most powerful method of influence and brings more people onto the side of their cause because they've only been exposed to the violent people. The very small percentage inside our community (or perhaps even outside, just to troll or whatever).

What COULD happen next is even more worrying. We will all be slandered as being violent, hateful, or 'misogynistic' by public media (An even worse powerful influence) and then developers are going to have to force changes in their video games to please the unimportant. We'll all be oppressed. We'll all get spat on, instead of those purely responsible for the attacks.

[arbitor365]

as someone who has chatted with game devs, most of them are very liberal minded people, as professional artists usually are. they are far from being misogynists.

99% of the time when feminists try to point out misogyny in a video game, they do so by taking things out of context and trying to put words in the creator's mouths. like elizabeth in bioshock infinite.

"oh. this female character is weak and reliant on men, therefore the creators think all women are reliant on men"

setting aside the straw man, they totally ignore the story context and how elizabeth has led a forced shut-in life, how she grows stronger, and how she has lots of positive attributes like her compassion, wit, and curiosity.

any time i see feminists analyze a game it is through the filter of their obvious agenda. and i despise it.

[rezzah]

Acknowledge the possibility, don't act on everything.

[HurstDarkStar]

You do realize no one that actually games care about the topics she brings up, their mostly likely there to see conflict in the comment section. Like honestly WHO do you actually know that says "man women are so mistreated in games, I hate that" along these lines no one..

[vongruetz]

I thought this was an excellent, well spoken piece. I applaud the author for speaking her opinion on this and actually engaging in a discussion about this topic. Seems like there are too many times when there's controversy, both sides say we need to have a "discussion" but what they really mean is "I'm right, you're wrong, and you're an ass for not knowing it."