Talk:Thunderf00t/Criticism of Tropes vs. Women/Archive1

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Refutations

Point 1

1. "Thankfully, due to a higher focus on gender equality, we are indeed seeing stronger women characters appear more frequently in some media. In video games, though, there is still a severe lack of strong female characters."

Games portray more strong females not because there is a higher focus on Gender equality. It's just that more women have now started entering the gaming community, their money have a higher impact than their gender, or any civil movement. This is like Christians validating their religion by saying an earthquake will happen somewhere, and when it happens they simply grab it as a victory for their religion.

Association fallacy ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

This isn't even in our article... Nullahnung (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Added Article quote.37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Who knows. You might be right, I don't know. Nullahnung (talk) 02:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't claim to know either. But it seems more logical than some patriarchal conspiracy. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Look, nobody believes there is some patriarchal people conspiring against women somewhere. Patriarchy is just a word to express the way that society is (more men in power positions, etc.). Some people want society to change, and I think the best way to do that is to talk about it. Nullahnung (talk) 03:33, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't use strong words like 'nobody'. We both know the crazies exist even in the most rational of camps, even more so to one that can get all short of 'far-gone' people. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I apologize, I shouldn't have used a strong word like "nobody". Nullahnung (talk) 04:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 2

2. "This is a rather narrow-minded understanding of the video gaming market, which counts a healthy number of women"

In what type of games? Most women that play games are casual gamers that don't get involved into actual PC/Console gaming but are more involved in Cellphone/tablet and browser based games.(That's why you see almost 50-50 browser based games both for men and women. Lastly based on the last infographic League of Legends gave out, based on it's user base which is one of the largest in the world, and the game is both open to males and females equally, 92% of players were male in 2012. How do you expect representation more than what an 8% is worth? And for such a small number League is making hard attempts to draw female players(with girly skins/champs, less revealing strong females, and a soup of things to everyone's liking). Yet still, not a lot of women enjoy that type of activity and so the industry cannot offer them more. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

It is very difficult to draw a clear line between casual gaming, which women are supposed to be more equally in, and "hardcore gaming", whatever that is (everyone has their own definition of hardcore). The hardest core of gaming from a PC gamer perspective is those who play PC FPS, RPG, RTS, TBS, etc. Here's an article from RPS that explores this in more detail: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/04/09/nielson-study-majority-pc-gamers-female-solitary/ I quote from it: "hardcore PC gaming is dominated by male players, although with a significant female audience." Nullahnung (talk) 00:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

If you want me to be frank, I wasn't sure myself, I went by experience(the people I meet online) and thinking how many of them are women and men. And I play a wide array of games, most female players by my experience are in MMORPGs as far as the hardcore community goes. Again this is personal experience but I haven't been proven wrong(doesn't mean I am right either). 37.6.235.165 (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 3 & 4

3. "In Thunderf00t's eyes, stupidity makes money, so that's a good thing."

No, the specific game he was talking about was a game from the 8-bit era where physical resources for the game were limited. So, back in that time they even counted the number of letters they used to save space so the game could be portable with the technology they had(cartridges). They couldn't give a complicated plot and that's why they needed to keep it simple. The industry has evolved past that point but because evolution is a gradual process it takes time to move away from shallower plots to more deep and rich ones. Some games manage that, some don't. And that depends on the content creators and how good they are, not culture.

4. "While some sophisticated games do emphasize love as a motive, the shallower ones have the woman blatantly portrayed as barely more than a passive, inanimate object"

Like in #3, this is just a strawman argument. The resources back then weren't available to do something greater than that, nor were women gaming as much as the time, since like it or not, videogames had been a 'boys thing' when they came out, up until I started playing online games, I hadn't met a single female gamer nor I had seen any articles concerning them, even when Lara Croft came out which should have been a big thing for 'strong girls' to find finally a strong female protagonist, but no, the articles were about her tits. That doesn't show that the industry was sexist. It just had no females and so she didn't need to represent them. Like car races don't have many females(I know they do, I said not many) and so they don't get represented, nor you see men doing sexy dances and rubbing their croches against cars, simply because women do not give a fuck about cars like that. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

We're not talking about games from way back when, Thunderf00t was talking about the new Double Dragon which came out not too long ago, where at the end you had to fight your bro to see who gets the girl.... Also, nowadays we have games like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Princess, I just wish Thunderf00t would at least acknowledge that a problem does exist, even if he doesn't believe it to be a big problem. Nullahnung (talk) 00:35, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

So, what's the issue? Don't buy/play the shallower ones. A lot of shit games come out, should we put some 'character standards'? What if the creator simply wants all the characters to be bland(minecraft villagers).37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, nobody is saying that we should have any "character standards" or anything else that forcefully restricts devs from making games the way they want with the characters that they want. It is however still useful to talk about how there is a lack of active roles for female characters, etc., I don't think you'll disagree with that. Nullahnung (talk) 02:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

That's the key here. Sarkeesian and the vast majority of feminist social critics aren't looking to put laws into place requiring some kind of "sexism free certification." They are social critics who criticize cultural objects, in this case video games. There's no difference between Sarkeesian's criticism and that of a movie critic who says Michael Bay movies are shit. The movie critic isn't trying to outlaw Michael Bay movies are put into place some kind of standards that would prevent him from making shitty movies, he is simply expressing his opinion. You're free to ignore them, but they're free to make the claims they make. --Marlow (talk) 17:46, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a shame though that she needs to use miserably fallacious tactics to support her points. And there are several videos beyond those of thunderfoot that explain exactly how she does that. 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 5

5. "Mason's argument here hinges on the assumption that the only possible responses to such a situation are to be a vigilante or an apathetic jerk who does absolutely nothing as thugs kidnap a loved one. In reality, the "healthy" response would be to call the police, who have the resources and training (and moreover the legal authority) to deal with violent criminals. But of course video games are fiction. Video games allow players to enjoy doing things they can't in reality, like pounding the crap out of bad guys."

You answered yourself here, so, what's the argument? Make a videogame where your objective is to call the cops and wait for them anxiously for if they find your girlfriend unraped and in one piece? Does the coop involve a buddy bringing you coffee and exposing that he was gay so it appeals to the homosexual community too while at it? As interesting as that type of game seems to you, I doubt it would sell that well, especially in the 80's. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

The problem here is, video games are fiction, so Thunderf00t shouldn't make the whole argument about healthy relationship being defined in-game. The problem here is that the one important female character is a passive objective you play towards. There's a lack in active roles for women in games and if that changed, maybe video games would become a more accessible medium to women. Nullahnung (talk) 00:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

That was a classic 80's game, it was a remake, that means they took the old game and refurbished it. You can't argue that games are sexist, take a sexist game as an example, then argue that all games are sexist by refusing to see the non-sexist ones. That's confirmation bias at it's finest and more people should have called her out for it.37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

That's a strawman you set up. We aren't taking a sexist game and then arguing the same for all games. We know that there are positive examples around. If you feel that I have neglected to mention positive examples of games I can list a whole bunch of non-sexist games right here right now, but that's not the topic. The topic is the relative lack, not the absolute lack. Nullahnung (talk) 03:01, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but the way feminists argue comes off as if they imply that all games are sexist, that there is something inherently wrong with the gaming community that -must- change and it -must- do it now or else it will be cause for some great social distress. Anita hasn't shown any of the positive examples and if so she skimmed through them so subtly that they have been erased from my memory. If people present themselves this way, which is borderline dishonest(if not just dishonest), then people like TF have every right to criticize them as they see fit. But we have sidetracked from this answer's topic. The problem here is that this is just one game, it doesn't represent anything so the argument as a whole in null. TF used it because I think Anita did. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Anita has actually shown positive examples, but not many. Her video are supposed to show us where the problem is, anyway, not where the problem isn't, so she shouldn't actually be showing us any positive examples. But yes, it's a sidetrack.

Yes, one game is not representative, but I think on the whole there is actually a significant amount of sexism and we can use single games to illustrate the problems that do appear. Nullahnung (talk) 04:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Ms Pac-Man. Any accidental sexism is purely the result of technical limitations.

Yes, but also taking an example from an 80's game remake also shows quite a bit of bias, since so called 'sexism' back them was mostly done due to technical limitations rather than option. So even if you took it just as a mere example, it's still wrong. Or at least very, very questionable. Why not take a group of recent games, 4 or 5? If there is truly a problem with sexism it shouldn't be hard to get 5 of those. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Even if these non-progressive tropes were used due to a lack of resources (how many resources can it take to programme in some text to indicate a plot twist to change the story?) it doesn't mean they're not worth discussing in the context of sexism. They still influence modern games, some of which Anita has mentioned, like Guacamelee or Braid (Btw, I love both of those games to death and believe that they aren't sexist, but I still admit that they show some non-progressive tropes. Braid did it in a progressive way, though, because in that one the Princess turned out in the end to not be just a passive character in need of saving. I certainly wouldn't criticise Guacamelee or Braid at all, they're fantastic, I just think it's useful to talk about some of the tropes they exhibit. Nullahnung (talk) 12:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

If you research the things some developers did in cartiges to save space you'd be amazed. From using repeated tiles to cutting off from actual text. If you do agree that most of the games Anita mentions wouldn't really 'apply' for the purpose why doesn't your community denounce her and put some talking head that has -actual- points? With games that DO exhibit sexism(Duke Nukem where the only women in it are almost naked strippers?). Anita's videos only serve to present the people making these arguments as ones that poorly research the material they are arguing about, especially if the support her. I do agree though that some of those 'tropes' have remained because not every developer is creative, like it or not that's reality and you can't blame anyone for being 'uncreative' you can show your opinion by not purchasing their products really, and that's all that can realistically happen to help your cause. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 16:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Why RW doesn't denounce Anita? I think it's because she usually has a point, generally speaking. It's just that some of the specifics she didn't do good research on and if RW were a gaming community they'd certainly denounce her for that. But RW is not a gaming community. As long as she has a point generally speaking and TF is making mistakes in arguing against feminism then TF gets denounced and she doesn't. Nullahnung (talk) 17:23, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The only way she can show her opinion is by not buying these products? Why can't she criticize aspects of games she finds problematic? The point she is making is that these sexist early video game tropes (yes, sometimes the result of early memory limitations) still exist today when those limitations are no longer present. Why can't a woman point out these problematic issues. The real issue her is that the level of criticism Sarkeesian has received from the male gaming community is vastly disproportionate to the rather simple and obvious points she makes. There's a huge effort to paint her, not as a critic who makes mistakes like every other critic, but as some kind of evil outsider intent on destroying video games. Misogyny on the internet and in the gaming community is rife and instead of acknowledging these problems, these communities have set about trying to destroy a women who points them out. Some have gone about it through vitriolic threats, but others like Mason have gone about it using pseudo-rational discourse, going through her criticism with a fine tooth comb and upon finding the slightest knot proclaiming the totality to be at best nonsense and at worst an evil feminist plot. --Marlow (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I used the wrong words there, the only way her opinions 'count' is by her not purchasing the products. The market or society won't really change or care unless it is forced to adapt. If enough people stop buying games that sexualize women, devs will stop sexualizing them. That's what I meant. As for 'those limitations don't exist today', nope, they don't, that's why you see games with strong female protagonists, one of the first releases for PS3 was Heavenly Sword which had one of the best female protagonists I had seen for a while, and things have only been turning better for women in gaming considering more games with strong females or the option to play as females pop out. As for the rest, no, not everyone reffuting your points is a misogynist, and no, just because you disagree with a point, it doesn't make it pseudo-rational. I have pretty much refuted all the points in this article and I am a random guy online, with no bias towards women, feminism or you. You just try to divert and twist the conversation, make claims about people like me, about who I am, as if you even know more about me than an IP address. If there are inconsistances in Anita's arguments, those will be pointed out. She can either fix them or leave them. She chooses the latter and that's her problem. If you think there is a point Anita makes that I can't refute, go to the bottom of this page and say it. I am not afraid to admit when I see a good point. 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:32, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

All of that is just your opinion. I disagree. I have argued against your refutations of this article sufficiently so that your refutations don't really hold, in my opinion. Nullahnung (talk) 00:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Please, be specific, I thought I addressed all your previous points, and other than what weasel has added, I doubt there was anything more to be said. So, it comes down to a matter of opinion then? I can agree with that of course, since a lot of stuff I have stated are my opinion and unlike weasel I don't claim to represent anyone but myself. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

You want me to go through each point? Ok, I will go through all the points further down below in the "General" section of this talk page.

"so called 'sexism' back then was mostly done due to technical limitations" <--- This is just such a stupid argument. Just look at some of the accompanying artwork for Ms Pac-Man for example. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Is the argument stupid or the person reading it? Read the word 'mostly' next time. If you live at a time where black people are slaves, no one would call you racist for mistreating a black person because they were black. Same with femininity and women back then. No one thought ill of it because there wasn't a huge movement or enough women to express how negatively that made them feel(though it's still predominately women that buy the same fashion magazines that sexualize them and so on and so forth, but feminists like you dislike porn magazines for the same reason just because men buy them instead). 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There was no feminism in 80s? Are you for real? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

No, but feminism back then was reserved for actual social issues, not video games. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

If video games are so unimportant, why you spending so much time ranting about them & what other people think of them? ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

He's implying there are no social issues in video games, he's not implying that video games are unimportant. (I disagree with him of course.) Nullahnung (talk) 18:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, back then you would not have been called a racist for discriminating against black people, but in retrospect we sure as hell would call those guys racist! Nullahnung (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but we live in the present, not the future. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, we live in the present, not the past, so why shouldn't we look back at older games and hopefully be able to measure the progress we've made from back then, also in terms of equality issues. Nullahnung (talk) 18:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to make it absolutely clear what Weaseloid is talking about, he's referring to the fact that Ms. Pac-Man had to be identified as such with make-up, bow, eye lashes and boots. A secondary Pac-Man with "female accessories", so to speak. Nullahnung (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC) EDIT: I missed Weaseloid's point, he was referring to the depiction of the character as an object of male desire. I think what I posted is an important addendum, though. Nullahnung (talk) 14:08, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Who are you talking to? Why are you still acting like I need an interpreter? Wēāŝēīōīď^{Methinks it is a Weasel}

I was just making a note for other readers who read up to here, but then neglect to read your reply below. Nullahnung (talk) 17:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I won't act like I know what was going through the dev's mind or the artist's mind when they created Ms. Pac-man but I am pretty sure it was to sate the few girls that played in arcades, needless to say if it was just a bland M-P with a bow-tie it would drive away a lot of males of that time and so they had to give it an appealing attribute to them. But that's purely my opinion which I believe is rather logical and doesn't try to expose some underlying sexism. But really, those games are from the 80's where women had far more problems than their 'sex-appeal' being their only objective value to society. Oh, and being at home. But I admit those are just excuses, yet how do you support that that problem still exists today with a variety of games? Both of which sexualize women, and those that don't. You are also talking about a different game, we were discussing double dragon here if I am correct. And specifically double dragon's revision. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

If you wanted to keep talking only about Double Dragon, then you need to indicate so, you made a very general comment about older video games, so we thought it was fine to just generally talk about older video games. For the new video games, there is sexual objectification in newer ones too and I can list some examples, but the topic here is older games or Double Dragon, I'm actually confused about what the topic even is anymore. Nullahnung (talk) 00:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Null, that was my bad. But if you are going to cite me a game which sexualizes women, I'll answer with one that doesn't or one that sexualizes men. At this point there is what we call variety, you can't focus on the negatives and say that there is a problem, because I can start making the opposite argument and say we have too little sexualization of women in games and only cite games that don't purport women as such. As for you refuting my arguments, I thought I had answered everything already, what did I miss? 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:53, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That's like saying there isn't a plague problem during a plague because for every sick person I can cite you another healthy person (and no, I'm not trying to say sexual objectification is the same as a plague, please don't misconstrue my use of a perfectly good analogy)... The problem is the sexual objectification exists in significant amounts still, more than there needs to be. Talking about how it exists and acknowledging that it would be good to see less of them cannot be bad, wouldn't you agree? Nullahnung (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

It's sad that you thought you had to explain it, & then missed the point. My point is not just that Pac-Man was a secondary feminised Pac-Man, but that her appearance (especially in promotional artwork - where the technical limitations really argument doesn't apply) was extremely sexist and was needlessly sexual. Look at the artwork above & below the screen on the arcade machine above (& thanks for 'fixing' the sarcastic caption, BTW!). See how Ms P-M is posing & pouting ridiculously in a traditional pin-up girl pose? Pac-Men (in game) are just spherical clusters of pixels with big flapping mouths, but because this one is female of course she has to be presented as an object of male desire. ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

True, true. Well, at least I got you to explain it now, so we should all be on the same page! And I still hold that sarcasm online doesn't work as well as it should and it's better to be snarky without sarcasm, but suit yourself. Nullahnung (talk) 14:04, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Snark can include sarcasm, irony, satire, absurdist commentary, subversive humour and witty asides. These are all part of how RationalWiki presents its material to the world, and make the wiki both fun to edit and fun to read. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I prefer to avoid using sarcasm online because of Poe's Law, but as I said, suit yourself. Nullahnung (talk) 17:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 6

6. "Mason's argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum. Sarkeesian's video criticizes the use of the damsel in distress trope in fiction. At no point does she suggest there's anything wrong with acting to save women (or anyone, for that matter) in distress in real life."

So, if there is no problem in doing it in real life why is it a problem when it happens in fiction? Especially since Anita touches upon mostly old games which were made when the gaming community was 99% male and the resources for making games were more limited. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

I will give you that Anita isn't the best video game critic and needs to do more research on the games she criticises. Still, tropes like the damsel in distress and the lack of active roles for female characters are factors where it can only be good if we got rid of those factors. Nullahnung (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but given her kickstarter and the quality of both her videos and her research, she's nothing short of a scam artist in my book. I mainly wonder how the people that follow her and back her up can bare this. She is actually doing more damage to people who want to have an actual discussion about this subject. As for the tropes, how is that a thing? There are games with strong female protagonists, there are those with strong male protagonists. There are stories about saving women, or stories where women just help you from the background(mission briefings, being medics, etc) and games where males do exactly that. There is a difference in the quantity of the two but that depends on the developers and what they find profitable. Don't you think it's in their best interest if they have enough female customers to give them more games to buy? The incentive is money, and saying is anything else is just akin to a conspiracy theory.37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if she can be described as a scam artist just because she may not have done the best job out there. Everybody should know how Kickstarter works. You give someone money if you think they'll do something worthwhile. If you're disappointed by the result, then, well, shit happens. That's what Kickstarter is.

About the tropes, yes they are a thing. They don't apply to everything, but we're not talking about everything. It is not harmful to talk about tropes that do exist and how they make video games unattractive to women (yes yes, not ALL video games and not ALL women, I know that), it is a useful discussion to have. You can't deny that. Nullahnung (talk) 03:09, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Depends on what you consider useful. I could see it as an article on a magazine, as a TEDtalk yes, and a video series doesn't seem bad, but the discussion it has sparked? Game awards to Anita? That's just some short of tasteless joke. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I really don't care what happens to Anita, I'm more interested in the topic that she helped spark. Nullahnung (talk) 04:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I do care since it shows that any person of questionable honesty can do pretty much whatever they want in academic and business circles which due to their dishonesty, they shouldn't be able to affect. That was my point, the discussion is irrelevant and could have happened regardless of Anita ripping off people, getting trolled, or acknowledged. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Where's the questionable honesty? She was asking for, what, six grand for better cameras and microphones? I think the backers of her kickstarter, which grew vastly beyond it's initial goals and became more symbolic than anything else, got what they paid for. Sarkessian managed to start a real conversation about sexism in the video game community which is still ongoing. She's not perfect, but that's besides the point. The real issue is that people, yourself included, have taken the opportunity to find any kind of imperfection and use it to poison the well and dismiss all of her claims. Unfortunately this is related to people threatening to rape and murder her. The intent is the same; to force her out of discussion. --Marlow (talk) 18:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"Unfortunately this is related to people threatening to rape and murder her. The intent is the same; to force her out of discussion." Now I am related to trolls and mentally disabled people? Thank you, that's a real and honest rebuttal of the point that Anita doesn't know shit about what she is talking about. And as for the "questionable honesty", it's the fact that she is making claims about games she clearly hasn't played, and if she does play them, it's so she can pull some random shit like the hitman-hookers paradigm of 'how to be a retard in a game to make a point'. That was exactly like me whining about vandalism then getting into a peaceful protest, start breaking windows, and make a video of it to show the problem. It's just dishonest. And also shows she has no idea about even the basic objectives of said game, and then also ignores the same things that you can do with the far more MALE subjects in that same game which you can also undress. That's some sick shit by her reasoning no? Where is the outcry for the manraping in that same game? 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry but they are related, the seemingly rational discourse of people like Thunderfoot, though removed from the sickeningly vicious and prevalent attacks against women on the internet, belie a deep seated misogyny that I will get into in a moment. It's ok though, I'm not calling you some kind of viscous misogynist, just that your views are framed by underlying biases, biases we all have in one way or another. The key is examining your ingrained bias and moving past it. Doug Muder just released an excellent blog post on the topic as it relates to racism [1], but it applies equally well to sexism. But first, we seem to have a little goal post moving or muddy issues going on here that need clearing up. I was referring to your claim that somehow her Kickstarter funding and subsequent quality of her videos indicated she was a scam artist. It obviously does not. I guess you meant that you believe she "doesn't know shit about what she's talking about" rather than the idea that she somehow stole all the Kickstarter money, a ridiculous claim I've seen made elsewhere.

The key to the underlying misogyny that I'm speaking about is this: People like Thunderfoot are engaging in identical tactics to those that they accuse Sarkeesian of using, i.e. misinterpreting the content of the media they don't understand, cherry picking and taking items out of context. Perhaps the result of sloppy rhetoric, research on both their parts, and yet, when Thunderfoot does it his point still stands but when Sarkeesian does it it reveals her as scam artist.

I'll use the "women as set dressing"/Hitman issue we've been dancing around to illustrate this. Thunderfoot pulls out two key issues from Sarkeesian's video: first that the use of Watch Dogs to illustrate the prevalence of prostitutes as set dressing is fallacious as the mission in the game involves breaking up a sex trafficking ring. Second that the murder of prostitutes in Hitman Requiem, here used by Sarkeesian to illustrate the violent objectification present some open world games, is incorrect because the game actively deducts points for engaging in the aforementioned behavior. --Marlow (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hitman has prostitutes appear in 2 parts of 1 chapter. That's prevalence? The only game that has 'prevalence' in prostitutes is GTA and it's been like that since GTA3 came out, if not in GTA2(it was top down and I was pretty to even sit around and read the text). Watchdogs has only a chapter where, by the way, you break said trafficking ring. It's just one mission out of 40+. That's prevalence? Also those are 3 games, I can come up with around 5-6 more. There are over 10.000 games. Where is the prevalence? Open world games have whores because real world open cities have whores. Not sure if you ever been to one, but I have 3 whorehouses 2 blocks away from here each. Same with 'western' games like RDR. Or are Brothels offensive too? Maybe remove them from history? Look, the devs can go for as much realism as they want. In GTA you can fuck hookers, in WatchDogs, you can't, nor will women come over to your car to check you out when you honk them. Because they are different games, with watchdogs somehow trying to cater to a wider audience(but really it can't).

So no, there isn't a 'prevalence' of any such behavior. You are extrapolating the situation based on a handful of games. Something Anita does. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok how about an honest appraisal regarding the prevalence of brothels and prostitutes as set dressing in mainstream gaming. You can only come up with eight or nine games in total which contain prostitutes? Let's just look at the best selling games of 2013. The follow contain prostitutes and or brothels, although I might have missed a couple.

Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar)

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)

Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft)

Saints Row IV (Deep Silver)

BioShock Infinite (2K Games)

Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft)

Dead Island: Riptide (Deep Silver)

Hitman Absolution (Square Enix)

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar)

Max Payne 3 (Rockstar)

Grand Theft Auto Episodes: Liberty City (Rockstar)

God Of War: Ascension (Sony) (not sure about this one, but I think it does)

Red Dead Redemption: Game Of The Year Edition (Rockstar)

Sleeping Dogs (Square Enix)

Dead Island: Game Of The Year Edition (Deep Silver)

Dishonored (Bethesda)

In fact, looking at the list, if you discount sports games, (edit: CoD clones) and games specifically marketed towards children I'd hazard that about 80-90% of triple A titles contain prostitution with probably 90% of those allowing you to kill them. I'm not sure what you think is prevalent, but it's obviously a common trope. The idea that open world games simply must contain prostitutes because real cities contain prostitutes is pretty silly. Real cities have community gardens, dumps, city council meetings etc. etc why did the devs not include any in GTA 5 in their quest for "realism"? Neither Sarkeesian nor myself are saying that the simple presence of prostitutes is always a problem, but that they are widely used trope with sexist connotations. --Marlow (talk) 02:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but at this point it's clear you are not even a gamer. All the games you are talking about only have appearances of prostitutes and the only games from the list that you can actually kill them are GTA and RDR. Far Cry 3 has 1 or 2 prostitutes in 2 villages that have only the dialogue 'suki suki 2 dollah', since prostitutes like those exist in places like Philippines. You can't fuck them, and you can't touch them(can't use weapons in cities). As for Dead Island, Dishonored, the rest of GoW(other than the starting scene with the whores), Sleeping Dogs, Max Payne, Hitman, there are no whores, if there are please care to show me where and how their depiction is sexist? Because it seems you just mind the fact that whores exist(also strippers aren't whores, that's just offensive), not that they are just in the game. Bioshock doesn't even have whores so I don't know what you are talking about, it does have black slaves though, As for AC, the whores there are only meant to help you 'hide' from guards by walking next to you, so at best they are escort girls. Not to mention they are part of the secret society, giving them an active role in the story higher of that of a simple 'whore' as that is just a business front. About SR, there is one BDSM club mission and there are guys coming after you with dildos, not to mention you can face-sit people while naked. Whores are the least of that games 'problem' if you are a puritan like yourself. Last but not least, out of your 17 examples, out of which 2 has actual whore you can fuck and 2 give you the ability to kill them. That's far from 90% mark, also here is a list of AAA titles with no whores at all:

All CoD games.(Removing CoD and Clones)

BattleField games.

KillZone games.

Open worldish games:

BorderLand games.

Red Faction games.

Left4Dead games.

HalfLife games.

Dragonage games.(Except Origins)

Elder Scrolls games(though it has in-game literature about a lizard whore).

Dark Souls games.

Demon Souls games.

All FF games.

[Prototype] games.

2 worlds games.

Silent Hill games.

Resident Evil games.

I don't even need to mention the countless beat'em'up, sports and racing AAA titles. And by the way, all those are game SERIES, not just 1 game. Your argument that AAA titles have a prevalence of whores is just dishonest. Not only the examples you used, but the percentages you pulled out of your rectum since in your own list you can only kill whores in 2 games(both from Rockstar, and in both you can kill -everyone-, not just whores, so it's not like there is a focus on that). In short, you're a liar and on par with Anita. You are what's wrong with such discussions and you are the reason they can't take place. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, what's your problem with whores and why is it sexist for them to be in games? as I said I have whores around my place, it just seems realistic to have them in the game, especially ones that strive for over-the-top 'realism' like GTA, RDR. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't want to intrude too much on the conversation you've been having with Marlow, but I gotta point out that in Dragon Age Origins there was a whore house with all manner of male and female whores of fantasy races that you could fuck. It's a technicality, but still, do your research! Nullahnung (talk) 13:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think I have played Origins, where exactly is said whorehouse? Is it part of the main plot? If not I might have missed it since I didn't like the game much and skimmed through the main story really. Regardless sorry if I was wrong about it. But as for the previous Dragonage, NWN, and generally fantasy RPGs, there are no whorehouses... or brothels. With the exception of Witcher I think and Dragonage:Origins if what you say is correct. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 13:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Pearl Nullahnung (talk) 13:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The more you know. Also it has no main plot quests there so figures... I probably bipassed it. Sorry but I am not concentrating on the sexual aspects of games especially if I can go past them so I only notice what is thrown at my face. And a lot of other gamers do that if you have windows in your home. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I can tell we're getting somewhere as your responses are getting angrier and more nonsensical. You're missing the point almost entirely, accusing me a puritanical aversion to prostitutes in video games. The only point I'm trying to make here is that it is a common trope, something you seem intent on denying despite the overwhelming evidence. You miss the point that I pulled my list of games from the top selling games from of a single year, 2013. This is the list I used [2]. If you go through it yourself you'll see that, discounting children's and sports games, my list accounts for about 40-50% of the remaining titles. Knock off CoD and it's clones, which I thought I added above but did not, and we're pushing 80-90%. Your list spans at least 10 years. You accuse me of not being a gamer, why this would discount my arguments I don't know, but for the record I've played and enjoyed video games since I was 8. In fact I've played through every game that I listed with the exception of the Dead Island games, Sleeping Dogs and God of War. Not only that I liked most of them despite the presence of sexist tropes. I'm simply trying to show you that Sarkeesian isn't a liar. If anyone is a dreaded nongamer it is you. You say "As for Dead Island, Dishonored, the rest of GoW(other than the starting scene with the whores), Sleeping Dogs, Max Payne, Hitman, there are no whores, if there are please care to show me where"

"The only point I'm trying to make here is that it is a common trope, something you seem intent on denying despite the overwhelming evidence." You have offered no evidence, In fact, I cited far more games than you(excluding DA:O) that don't purport said trope. You threw some numbers like '80% of games contain hookers' and 'in 90% of those you can kill them'. Which are not just factually wrong, but akin to something a FOX news host would say. As for why not being a gamer discounts your arguments, it's because you have no experience in playing games. That means you see bullshit like that in watchdogs or hitman and think that's how gamers play games which is not the case. You are fighting ghosts in essence. Also nice 'I know what you are but what am I' 4th grade crap right there. And please, do claim victory because your dishonesty pisses off people, that does show you are a great proponent of feminism. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sleeping Dogs kidnapping a hooker

Of course, massage parlors. How could I forget. Oh my, he took that poor NPC and dragged her all the way to his bathroom to piss in front of her. At least he washed his hands. So, the side activities of a random individual now show tropes in video games right? Maybe the dev should have programmed the hooker to pull out a gun when you tried to do this to her even though you can do the exact same thing on ALL of the other NPCs in this game. Very strong argument. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Max Payne Favela brothel

K, I will admit I haven't played MP3, stopped in 2, but the stage is named Favela Brothel... and there is a hooker in a brothel(which you don't kill), so please, explain to me, how the fuck is sexist or 'tropes' to have whores in brothels, please? 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Dishonored prostitutes

You didn't have to, right after I posted I remembered 'red rose' or whatever the brothel there is called. Again, another single chapter, also in a game which usually stealth is preferred over aggression. By the way, in that same map you abuse a man's masochistic tendencies to extract information before killing him. I don't see guys whining about that though, or social justice warriors like yourself. And do you know why men don't whine about this crap while if it was a woman being tortured the same way and killed you'd be pissing all over the industry? Because we know it's a game and we can hardly give a fuck about a virtual character, unlike you. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Hitman a strip club where sex is clearly available for purchase

Where? Nowhere in that video did he get an option to 'purchase' sex. He just joked around about killing the girls and dressing like a tranny. How offensive. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll give you Dead Island, it's only known for blatantly violently misogynistic give aways like this [3], rather than the presence of actual prostitutes. My mistake.

That's not even 'in' the game. Also how is this misogynistic? This word has completely lost it's meaning due to idiots throwing it around so easily. Also this mean all games that you can kill men are misandric. Which no one sane would agree with. You can't have double standards. So where does that leave you? 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

If you can't see the misogyny in a headless, limbless mutilated female torso wearing a bikini then I think we're just to far apart in our understanding of gender issues to even debate the topic. --Marlow (talk) 18:55, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

So now you've accused me of being a liar and a horrible bad nongamer. And yet you don't even know the content of the games you profess to love. Oddly Max Payne and Dishonored are both featured prominently in the Sarkeesian video we're talking about, so now I'm beginning to doubt you've even seen it. --Marlow (talk) 14:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry that I don't remember a measly 1% of said games where the things you are talking about are depicted, mainly because I enjoyed the rest of the game so I didn't focus on crap that I didn't enjoy. Like going in the brothels in open world games or strip clubs for that matter. But in GTAV, the one time when I went into the strip club, I couldn't use weapons... how strange, while just outside of them I shot a guards face before walking right in. But it was a man so it was okay, right? 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Wait, so you call me a liar because you forgot about the content in question and this is the apology you offer. Don't be a jerk. --Marlow (talk) 18:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I call you a liar because you pull numbers out of your ass as explained bellow. I also call you dishonest because you are doing what this article blames thunderfoot of doing, that is attacking 3 of the points in an argument, which are then promptly refined, only so you can claim that you 'proved' something in that delusionland that you live in. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 06:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Thunderfoot accuses Sarkeesian of cherry picking sexist video games while ignoring other unoffensive material and yet here he is ignoring the fact that Sarkeesian is making an undeniable and valid broad point about the prevalence of strip clubs, prostitutes and brothels in open world games and cherry picking a couple of places where Sarkeesian seems to be a bit off. --Marlow (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

My above point answers this as well. Anita's broad point is wrong. He didn't ignore anything because Anita's point was moot. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It's clearly a common trope as evidenced above. --Marlow (talk) 02:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It's far from common considering you cite 16 games and I think there are 40000 games in existence which include at least 1500 AAA titles since 2000. There is an article in escapist but it'll be hard to get an exact number since it's a few billion dollar industry. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I cited 16 (14 actually as Dead Island is only known for blatant misogyny rather than the presence of prostitutes) games out of the 100 top selling games of 2013. Pretty significant especially given that the list is about 25% sports games, 25% children's games and 10% CoD clones. --Marlow (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

So, you want to use a top100 list from 2013 for me to refute you?

Tomb Raider (Square Enix)

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (Microsoft)

The Last Of Us (Sony)

Batman: Arkham Origins (WB Games)

BioShock Infinite (2K Games)

Aliens: Colonial Marines (Sega)

Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft)

Gears Of War: Judgment (Microsoft)

Crysis 3 (EA)

Dead Space 3 (EA)

Dead Rising 3 (Microsoft)

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Konami)

Defiance (Trion Worlds)

Borderlands 2 (2K Games)

Beyond: Two Souls (Sony)

Payday 2 (505 Games)

DmC Devil May Cry (Capcom)

Metro: Last Light (Deep Silver)

The Last of Us (Sony)

Refined list for the sore asses. By the way; Misogyny : a hatred of women. How do games that generally allow you to kill -everyone- including women, show misogyny? Again, that's EXACTLY like claiming that games that allow you to kill men exhibit blatant misandry. Again, TF is right in his claims, you will grab what little bit you can of a game, even 1% of 1% of it, or just the way a specific PERSON plays a game, in order to make your point that ALL games and ALL players are misogynistic. Which is a lie, and a wrong/illogical conclusion.

By the way, still your list has only GTA, DRD, and Sleeping Dogs as games where you can actually kill or 'play with' prostitutes. And the Dragonage now that we learned about it, though if they are like the rest of the friendly NPCs, you can't kill them, so maybe just 3 games? I do agree brothels/strip clubs exist in a lot of open world games though, but why is that an issue? You feel like it disempowers women, okay sure, but I see them outside of my house, there is no reason to not expect them in in-game cities, realistic or not. That doesn't show misogyny or anything for the matter other than extra content for the game. Maybe people would also take you more seriously if you didn't whine about things while held double standards so you won't seem like an idiot(example; killing women = misogyny, killing men = perfectly fine). 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm done here. I've shown you that prostitution is a common trope that appears in a significant number of video games. You can argue that it's not significant or that it isn't misogynistic or whatever you want, that might be a valid argument. I'm not interested in having it with you as you've been consistently rude and don't seem to have much of an understanding of gender issues, your claim that the Dead Island bust of a mutilated female torso isn't misogynistic is particularly telling in this regard. The point I've been making and that you have consistently ignored is that Thunderfoot calling Sarkeesian a liar is simply wrong. --Marlow (talk) 18:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

No, what you did is just take games that share a common trope. And I am not sure you can call it a trope even since if you look at games prior to 2013 you'll find far less open world games that have that theme. And it's not even a THEME since the games aren't centered around it. That's why the word trope is being misused here. Having a brothel in your game, doesn't mean that you game is 'centered' around brothels or that theme for the matter. It's also a relatively new theme with only GTA doing it in the past and just recently had other games joining into it. Last but not least, you showed 16 games, out of which only 3 seemed questionable in how they make use of said 'trope'(it's not a trope but lets call it that or else you'll start crying). As for how a woman's torso as a collectable to a ZOMBIE game is misogynistic, you can cry as many womanly tears as you want for it. I doesn't change the fact that it doesn't show woman hating(hence misogyny). It shows a woman's grim death as far as any sane person can tell. I am sorry I am doubting how much zombies 'hate' women. You probably not only don't know what misogyny means, but also what hate means. So yeah, please, avoid arguing with me as I have a problem keeping myself civil when talking to idiots who think they or their opinions need to be respected regardless of how stupid they are. You should also have thought about me becoming rude the moment you equated me to people making rape threats. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 18:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

There's something you're just not seeing about that statue. It's not just a depiction of grim death, it's also a depiction of "no face, just boobs+bikini", reducing a woman to an object... or more accurately two round objects. I don't even care if you don't want to use the word "misogynistic", but it's clearly objectifying. Nullahnung (talk) 18:58, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Using the word misogynistic is just wrong, it doesn't matter if I want to use it or not. It doesn't show hatred for women, the torso could have easily been a male one but I can bet my ass it's because of the game demographics that they chose a female. Also if you read the article that Marlow sent, it is mentioned that they took the so called 'offensive' statue from ancient art like this: http://www.allartnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/A-beautifully-sculpted-Roman-marble-torso-of-Aphrodite-circa-1st-century-A.D.jpg 91.140.15.71 (talk) 19:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yikes, definitely done here. At least I've gotten you to admit that it's a common trope that is featured in a number of video games, making your argument that Sarkeesian is lying completely fallacious. The rest of your comment is just a bunch of confused nonsense. And Yes, like Nullahung said, a bikini clad mutilated female torso is an example of misogyny a lot of gamers agree with me on this one [4]. Good luck finding your gamer GF though, hopefully you'll be able to examine your views more closely when you have more contact with women. --Marlow (talk) 19:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

You can't make me admit something that I haven't as hard as you may try, even if you repeat it to infinity. First of all, the word trope doesn't describe this because it's not a general theme of a game, nor an overused one(1. You take the top 100, which might just mean that the games with that theme inside sell well, not that all games use it, 2. You imply that other games that 'can't have that theme' don't count, which again is wrong because they are games regardless of genre. And racing games can be sexist too, I am sure you can find sexism in kids games too, if it exists is a completely different matter though). Secondly, you act like people aren't aware of gender issues just because they don't share your views on some matters concerning gender issues, which is also wrong. Also no, Null never said that. He specifically said it shows objectification, which I hope he corrects after reading the article you cited and sees where the artist took said 'statuete' from and retexturized it. Also you should know better than making an argument ad populum to convince me. And if I want condescending tone from idiots I can go to a church nearby. By the way, you have found mistakes in a couple of my points but you never actually refuted the arguments. I might have been wrong about brothels existing in 3 games, does that refute the other 19 games I posted that don't have it? Which were also from the top 100 list? At best that shows sexism(brothels I suppose) exist in 40% of the games and 'offensive' sexism(killing whores) exists in 5% of those, not 90% as YOU claimed. All in all, you are using loaded arguments and emotional words trying as well as trying to draw a reaction from the person you are arguing against, this is painfully clear, but I don't really care. You get the treatment you deserve when you do that. Null didn't do such shit and we had a normal, mature conversation. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 19:46, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thunderfoot and others, yourself in included, claim that Sarkeesian doesn't know about video games, as evidenced by her use of the Watch Dog's sex trafficking mission, and can thus be dismissed. The problem is Thunderfoot actually doesn't know what he's talking about when he says "how can a mission in which you break up a sex trafficking ring be sexist." They answer is: very easily. And Thunderfoot would know this if he had even the most basic understanding of feminist theory. Games in which the player takes on the role of the white knight rescuing a damsel/damsels in distress are a key part of what Sarkeesian is criticizing in many of her videos and this no different except for that, in comparison to Princess Peach, the women are also incredibly sexualized in the process. That isn't to say that disruption of sex trafficking is always a sexist trope, The Wire pulled it off reasonably well in its second season, but to say a video game is obviously not sexist because the male character is helping the female characters shows a profound ignorance about what feminists like Sarkeesian have said. The key is that in video games like Watch Dogs the women act as passive objects being fought over by active males. --Marlow (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

No, excuse me but that's not it. I am not saying 'hah, Anita is wrong here, therefore everything is wrong!', no, that's what you think we're saying because you are focusing at only one point at a time. There are several inconsistencies in the ways she goes about with her arguments that lead us to believe she is both dishonest and untrustworthy.

As for how breaking a sex trafficking ring in a game where you take the role of a 'vigilantie' is sexist, I'm leaving that to you. I can find reasons why milk is racist if I want to. That doesn't mean I am not stupid for believing that. It's called rationalization by the way, or at least it's the same function. Exactly.

"the women are also incredibly sexualized in the process." I quote that because it makes me laugh. The mission is about you breaking a sex trafficking ring. Are the women supposed to be dressed in full body armor? Would it make it better if they had male prostitutes there too?(not sure if they don't since it's been a while since I played watchdogs). Are games not supposed to have missions that include sex trafficking? Why? So people don't know this problem exists? Hide the baddies away? Last but not least, in games like Watchdogs, Prototype, even GTA, all NPCs act as passive things that you plant bullets in. They have no other purpose other than making you laugh at their misfortune of being in that specific simulated world and a lot of people like it that way, and there is no good reason not to... unless you don't like the game maybe? In which case go find something that you do? 91.140.15.71 (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Finally Thunderfoot misinterprets Sarkeesian's message when he accuses her of lying about Hitman. Thunderfoot knows very well that sandbox games are not always about points and Sarkeesian is correct in saying that everything in a video game is a result of a choice on the part of the developer; that by offering the player a brothel sandbox in a murder simulator the developers are encouraging players to murder prostitutes. The results of this choice are clearly evidenced in the multitude of youtube videos in which players do exactly what Sarkeesian shows in her video, slaughtering prostitutes and playing with their corpses. That there are opportunities to do the similar things to men does not change the troubling aspect of this situation. --Marlow (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Problem here is Hitman isn't a sandbox game. It's a mission based game where all you do are the missions. Now if you want to fuck around with dead bodies you aren't essentially 'playing the game'. It's purposeless and unless you have issues, you won't be doing it often. If the character kept seeing me it might piss me off and have me shoot her head and then do all the things Anita depicted and more, but that would be a moment of frustration in a video game over an annoying character, and it wouldn't be confined to neither the prostitutes, nor female characters in general, but any character that would similarly annoy me. Do you feel sorry about that NPC? Much sad... very disappoint... wow 91.140.15.71 (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Not a sandbox game? Pretty debatable, they've always been about giving you an open area and letting you make of it what you will. Maybe nonlinear would be a better word, but in any event free form play is very much the point and giving someone a brothel to do this in is a clear choice on the part of the developer. Another straw man about the NPC. Obviously what is troubling is people making Youtube videos where they simulate violent sadistic misogynistic fantasies. --Marlow (talk) 02:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"Not a sandbox game? Pretty debatable" Not at all, if it is a sandbox game, there is a genre for that and we usually refer to them as open-world. In Hitman you have missions and two options. Go all out, or go stealthy and complete your mission. Sandbox games have more than just two options. Also no, when they have given hospitals, crowded streets, opera houses, police departments, building complexes, butcheries, clubs and rich-people parties, giving you a brothel doesn't make the game sexist, it makes them look for ideas. Also sorry, but the only person who made a youtube video about Hitman depicting that shit, is Anita. Should we lock her up? Also, there are 1000+ youtubers making gameplay videos, you found 4-5 videos from random gamers that did this crap. That's not a representative example, you literally had to look in the devils ass to get those. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Here are a bunch of video gamers calling it a sandbox game [5] [6] [7] [8]. The fact that you think there are only two options shows you have never played this series, it's filled with options, the early games were really cool. But anyway here are a bunch of youtube videos where people kill prostitutes and act out violent fantasies Vixen Stripper Piping WoW...! Stripper Challenge Killing Hot Girls. And you accuse of Sarkeesian making that video of playing with the stripper's bodies? Here's where it actually came from [9], care to take it back? --Marlow (talk) 15:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

So, now the genre of a game is chosen by the players, not the devs? I do admit that the old hitman games had an array of options and you know that too if you have played them. But if you have played absolution, you'd know how linear it is when it comes to how you do your missions. The best 'options' you get might go as far as choosing to take the stairs or the elevator to go from point A to point B, while there are levels of stealth you can take towards completing your mission. That's not a sandbox game. You should also look the vid I linked you to down bellow, from KiteTales. You are struck with comfirmation bias, and that's a bad thing to have when you are trying to make arguments as it WILL be pointed out and you will be discredited for it. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 17:53, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The genre doesn't really matter, player freedom is still very much an aspect of the game and as evidenced by the videos I've linked using that freedom to engage in violent sexual fantasies is pretty common. No interest in revising your statement that Sarkeesian made the video depicting the mass slaughter or strippers herself? --Marlow (talk) 18:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sad day for you, it actually does. You can't argue Mario is a sandbox game because you can skip levels or choose the height upon which you land on the flag. And that's a simple extrapolation of your argument. Does it seem stupid? Very. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 06:08, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

In all of these cases Thunderfoot blows by the obvious and actually rather uncontroversial main point of Sarkeesian's video: that recent sandbox games have a strange preponderance of brothels and prostitutes and that this is a negative from a feminist perspective. Instead he attempts to call her a fraud based on a handful of cherry picked misrepresentations. That Thunderfoot and his supporter either don't see or ignore these issues is indicative of the kind of unexamined bias that I'm talking about. These kinds of rhetorical issues are invisible when it is a man you agree with speaking, but when it is a women questioning something you enjoy there's an immediate reactionary impulse to find a reason to dismiss it. --Marlow (talk) 18:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Many reasons actually. If you think these 10 points are even scraping the surface of daf00t you are f00led. Sorry, I had to, remembered an old edit I saw in the fossils. But really, I think not only TF, but a lot of people have done an excellent job at pretty much covering all of Anita's points except the ones where you can claim 'personal opinion' over 'matters of fact'. And even today I saw some of those points being covered, for example how Anita expects female character to adhere to her sense of what makes a character 'strong'. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJihi5rB_Ek 91.140.15.71 (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, you don't really go to Thunderf00t for balanced and constructive criticism of feminist examinations that talk about shortcomings of said examinations and how to overcome them while acknowledging the useful/valid points. Nullahnung (talk) 19:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

TF has a good reason to not be balanced on the subject of feminism that goes beyond games. The takeover of freethought blogs has had some side victims, including the armored skeptic, you should hear his story some time. 91.140.15.71 (talk)

That's the thing with virtually all criticism of Sarkeesian, there's stuff to criticize, but everyone I see engaging in it is doing so in an effort to undermine her entire argument and dismiss her, "she doesn't know shit about what she's talking about," "she's a scam artist" "a liar." If Thunderfoot began his video with something like "sexist tropes are common in video games, but there are a few places where Sarkeesian should clarify or use a better example." I'd probably be on his side, but instead his videos are couched with the deeply troubling idea that feminism literally poisons everything. --Marlow (talk) 19:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That's unfortunate. The best thing I could find with a quick google was this: http://dpadblog.com/2014/06/17/critique-of-sarkeesians-women-as-background-decoration-video/

I think it still is showing signs of misunderstanding what feminists are typically about, but at least it makes a sincere effort at constructive and balanced criticism, in a tone that is respectful in the spirit of discussion. Nullahnung (talk) 20:05, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly the kind of response that her videos should get. Unfortunately most of what we tend to see, Thunderfoot included, amounts to little more than GTFO. --Marlow (talk) 20:20, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 7 & 8

7. "While a game being shallow to the point of characters having no depth is fine, (gameplay often takes priority), the nature of the trope creates an imbalance in active roles where women tend to be more passive"

Depends on the game, also usually when there is an event like a hostage situation, given your social bias as a human being that has grown in a human society regardless of locality, whom would you expect to be more feisty? A woman or a man? This is common sense, you can argue how it's wrong, or how it should be portrayed less in games because they are fantasy if it isn't wrong. But the reality is that's what people are more used to show. The last thing I expect when I walk down the street is a guy pulling a gun and starting shooting at me. But what would surprise me more is seeing a woman do that. Another example is if you look at all the mass shootings, all done by men. Gangs? Usually composed by men. Men are considered, and are factually, more dangerous. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

8. "but rather takes issue with the portrayal of women as "frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures."

So lets say fuck realistic games? ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

Luckily, realism has no place in games (except where it specifically is the point, like in Arma). Want a female gangster? Bam, female gangster. Want a male hostage? Bam, male hostage. The imbalances of the real world do not have to exist in video games. Nullahnung (talk) 01:04, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, they do not 'HAVE' to. It's the choice of the developer. If the developer has an open forum during development, you can always go and give them feedback and ideas and if they feel like it, they will incorporate it. It's no ones place to step on creative rights. Would you go around telling musicians to change notes in melodies because 'you don't like it'? It's crude comparison and maybe a bit wrong but you get what I am saying, right?37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Nobody here on RW wants to restrict creative rights, that's a strawman. Of course Devs can do whatever they want. By the same token, whether we talk about there being some imbalances in video games and whether we care about them is also up to us. Everybody should be able to create the games they want and talk and care about what they want. Nullahnung (talk) 03:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I never said anyone in RW wants to do that. I said that was the only possible way you could deal with that. And since no one would do such a thing, there is no reason to even make a discussion other than what has already been said, if you want something like more females of varying types, ask for it from the devs and hope they accept. There is nothing else that can be done or said on the issue and by the way, I thought we also came to the conclusion(or at least agreed) that this situation is fixing itself(look at Saints Row series). Most games are becoming equal opportunity as it is. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs 37.6.235.165}

If the problems are going away, then good! That's all that needs to be cared about. Nullahnung (talk) 04:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

We can only hope. But really, if we seem more girls gaming that's only a good thing for 'me' and any people looking for a gamer gf(inb4 being called out for marginalizing women). The only people that talk shit to said women are 15 year olds that don't know where to stick their penis yet and had poor understanding of social structure when growing up(and probably mommy issues). The faster women learn to ignore such vitriol(like men ignore it in the online community) the faster we will all get to enjoy gaming together. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you honestly think that the only people who exhibit misogyny on the internet are 15 years old? You need to take a look at the men's rights movement. Ignoring the vitriol and attacking people who complain about it isn't the solution. --Marlow (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Like Feminism draws people that show complete misandry, so does the NRA draws misogynists. Like the right wing draws racist people more than the left wing, because simply the set-up is there for them to have their opinions(however stupid they are) and have other people with similar ideas support them(even if they don't agree in everything). ^{— Unsigned, by: 91.140.15.71 / talk / contribs}

Wanting girls to get involved just so you can get a girlfriend is the kind of attitude that puts a lot of women off (here & in many other male-dominated subcultures), as is the attitude of denying that sexism occurs, that it's widespread or that it's a problem, as is also the attitude of shutting down, discrediting or smearing people who do want to talk about sexism within popular culture. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:31, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"as is the attitude of denying that sexism occurs, that it's widespread or that it's a problem, as is also the attitude of shutting down, discrediting or smearing people who do want to talk about sexism within popular culture." So, pretty much any criticism or anything about YOU that is distressing other people shouldn't come to light? Any time a feminist makes a bogus claim and gets refuted, that attempt puts off women and so... what? I hear a lot of shit that puts me off, I learn to cope by either not giving a fuck or change how I think if those things have a point. You obviously don't welcome such way of thinking but sorry, society won't abide to your rules or your group's rules. If it wants to change, it will change. Any backlash you receive is that same society you are trying to change, and apparently, doesn't agree with said change. You can argue all you want about it not being right, or ethically 'good', but like every other critic of something, expect the same backlash. Have you seen what sport critics go through just for favoring one team in one article over another? If death threats aren't enough some actually get their asses kicked. This is not a problem with feminism, misogyny or men/women. It's a general problem with fanatics and people that are simply sick in the head and ascribe dogmatically to their own beliefs/way of life/etc. Usually those are the same people you are having an issue with and not the rest of 'men' or humanity in general. But seeing how you are so fast to equivocate me, a person just trying to have a discussion, to them, shows that you are not to be trusted. You've already tried the poison the well fallacy and ad honimem by pretty much equating me to people making rape threats bellow. 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

@Weaseloid: I agree about the other things you said, but I think you've misread slightly on the girlfriend bit. The wording was suggesting that the guy specifically wants a girlfriend who is also a gamer, not just any girlfriend. So if more girls were gamers he'd have more of a chance of meeting people who share the same interests. That in itself is not off-putting ("in itself" being the key words here). Nullahnung (talk) 21:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a common attitude and it is commonly cited as something that's off-putting to women about male-dominated interests & subcultures. Most women who want to get interested in these things want to do so for its own sake, & becoming the target for a lot of unwanted male attention is a nuisance. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe you, but I'd still be interested in any links to such citations that clearly show the problem if you find it convenient enough to provide them. (I might include something about that in my essay when I get some more free time.) Nullahnung (talk) 14:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

By that line of thought I shouldn't join cooking classes because a woman might hit on me and offend me with that'unpleasant' to me attitude. How dare people look for a companion! Especially one with the same interests! Sorry about the Sarcasm Null but he was asking for it. So long as sexual reproduction is a thing, you can't blame people for being sexually attracted. But you were right, first time around weasel missed the point completely. 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Your cooking class analogy is deeply flawed. It would be more like this: Women are attempting to get men to join their cooking class, not because they want a more diverse group or because they think men would enjoy it, but because they are looking for husbands. Now would you, a person with a genuine interest in cooking and no interest in being roped into marriage, want to go anywhere near that class? --Marlow (talk) 19:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

If I wanted to learn/liked cooking I would go, what's the worse that could happen? A chick trying to rape me with a spoon? I'd be more worried about elitist women telling me how much I suck at cooking(like elitist guys do to women in games) rather than how I would be offended for some women thinking I am a potential mate. You are still making that argument? Really? 91.140.15.71 (talk) 12:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 9

9. "Sarkeesian disabled comments on her videos on account of being subjected to death threats, rape threats, and vicious misogynistic and anti-Semitic insults in the comment sections. Not only do these kinds of comments constitute ad hominem arguments, but many of them are legally actionable."

It's the internet, stop taking it seriously, it was a better place before people like you were around(and I don't mean women). ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs 37.6.235.165}

Imagine you're a woman reading through comments on your video, then you start seeing "I'm gonna find you and rape you, bitch!" At this point it's up to you whether swallow it and say "Oh silly internet!", or whether you are disturbed by it. If you are disturbed by it, I wouldn't blame you. Nullahnung (talk) 01:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I am a netizen for a looong time now. I think there should be a simple rulebook made for it, or advice book that we should all read, concerning how things 'go' on the internet. You can't change this. You can only try and censor it but as history has proved time and time again, you will only make it worse(tor). I cannot accept a troll feeder's opinion simply because by their actions they show that they aren't intelligent enough(as if the subjects Anita specifically touches in video games aren't enough to make any gamer or intelligent person face palm). By the way, she could use just a bit of her kickstarter money and pay a channel moderator if she didn't want to deal with this bullshit and only address comments that had actual arguments, but you and me both know well that she can't do that. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 03:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't really care what Anita does with the trolls or whatever. I think the less everybody talks about this the sooner we'll all forget any trolling even happened. Then Anita will keep posting her videos in a quiet corner of the internet and there won't be much fuss about it because everybody who dislikes those kinds of videos has forgotten about her, and everything will be peaceful (just a theory!). Nullahnung (talk) 03:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

You can't be possibly implying that this whole attention is just because trolls are giving her shit. This goes well beyond the trolls and to other academic, social, and networking bodies as well as part of the gaming community. And I don't mean the players. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, the trolls started it, without them all the other bodies wouldn't have gotten involved much. I don't want to talk about the trolls anyway, so if you'll excuse me I'll stop responding to this here. Nullahnung (talk) 04:58, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry that I am having the last word in a subject you don't want to discuss, but trolls won't leave the internet. They existed since the time where IRC was the best form of communication, they existed in Usenet and they only became worse after imageboards appeared. It's a non-issue though, like crazy people in villages are a non-issue. The village idiot will always exist, as will the internet trolls. Ignoring them is the only strategy to win, and you can't blame them for attracting Anita attention, in fact she is the one using them to attract unwarranted attention. Besides, the only reason we are talking about trolls right now is because it's mentioned in the original article. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 16:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

The most popular YouTuber PewDiePie disabled the comment section of all his videos, even he understands that the comment section is full of arguments, trolls and is just a waiting cesspool. Much more meaningful conversations can be held elsewhere. While trolls have existed for a long time it doesn't make what they do right. Trolls have been interviewed in real life and they turn out to be the same in real life or worse than they are online. It's pretty damn horrible. Rather than shurgging your shoulders and being like "meh it's par for the course, it's the internets" we need to look down on people who think being a troll and distressing others is a lifestyle. It's like with a bully, if others just say "it's school, it happens" It will continue to happen. Take what 4chan trolls did to a little girl simply for "lulz" not cool at all. That's my two-cents Shatto (talk) 07:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Point 10

10. "Anita doesn't seem to say directly or indirectly whether sexism in video games makes gamers more sexist."

 "As for sexism, the jury (as in modern neuroscience) is still out on certain ideas from video games transplanting themselves into the human psyche"

So lets preemptively strike! Also don't fool yourself, that's what is implied. She has even implied that people playing hitman get sexual satisfaction by dragging around dead strippers. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

Again, I will give you that she does make a few unwarranted conclusions about these things, like saying it's a problem when the corpses of dead NPC women disappear (all NPC corpses disappear). She's not the best video game critic, she just gets a lot of attention because all the fucktards on the internet decided to post death and rape threats and gave her so much publicity. In the end, at least she made us think about sexism in video games, which is a dialogue that is not so bad to be had. Nullahnung (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I won't disagree with a discussion, but you don't start a discussion by saying. 'The gaming culture NEEDS to change! Me and the rest of the 10% of hardcore female gamers demand it!' and ask a whole industry to accommodate to their needs. Sure more and more women/girls are getting into video games but we haven't even had time to see how the market adjusts to that fact. And you must admit that it has since if you check how many games with female protagonists come out each year the numbers have only been increasing. So, I don't even get the point of this talk.

As for the rape/death threats, the moment they made that a 'big issue' on the internet they lost every bit of respect from me. You don't feed the trolls, they didn't only feed them, but they got everyone to pat them in the back for it. Congrats Anita, you faced those 15 year old demons...37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

It's whatever. It's an interesting discussion to have. Obviously nobody is forcing anybody to accommodate any demands or whatever, there will always be some fussy people crying around, but the rest of us will just be over here having a nice talk. If you don't want the troll stuff to be a big issue, stop talking about it, and it will fade into the background. Nullahnung (talk) 03:29, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I really don't find the interest in the discussion itself. People fascinate me more, especially the ones whom I can't follow their reasoning. There are a lot more interesting talks to be had with the same fervor people who discuss this matter show. Don't get me wrong, since we are here discussing this it probably follows that we are 'interested' in the matter in some sense. But you should agree that it has been blown out of proportion(as even today people are still talking about this crap). I just hope I won't see general recognition for the A.S. type of people again. Because it's just a cruel joke to people who have actual issues to discuss in gaming community and in matters of gender equality. The last generation of consoles, the type of games that come out that are becoming more and more stagnant with devs milking the same cows over and over, and things like how pubs are trying to milk the consumer wallets are far bigger deals than how we will get more female role models in gaming when a lot already exist and more are obviously on their way. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 04:21, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I on the other hand have all my interest in the discussion itself and don't care much about the people. I don't know enough about them to judge and I don't care enough to know either. Nullahnung (talk) 05:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

If the subject has a social aspect to it, you must by default care about the people to have the discussion, else it doesn't really matter what we say or think since it's only our selfish personal opinion. That's not something you want when talking about the treatment of people or generally ethics. Besides, the discussion is pretty much about the people. It's about the devs, about the players, male and female, and about the pubs. All those are people you need to involve into your discussion anyway so if your aim is knowledge, you must understand them. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I hate to admit it, but you may have a point there. Nullahnung (talk) 12:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Why do you hate to admit it when someone has a point? I understood and accepted most of your points unless I could refute them or had arguments against them. Being wrong is the first step to learn what's right. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 16:57, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I hate to admit it because I really don't want to care all that much about some people like Anita Sarkeesian or Thunderf00t whatever internet celebrity. I see how caring about them might seem sensible, but I don't want to. Nullahnung (talk) 17:23, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have this discussion and we wouldn't learn a thing about different modes of thought. 79.107.161.182 (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add here (if this is even the right place) that Anita does indeed link to a source where it gives a resounding Yes that over sexualized women in the media and undoubtedly games as well, influence men, unlike violence. In the description of her Women as Background Decorations PT1 video it has a link to a page where she keeps the transcript of the video and sources. Of those sources one is to a page about The sexual Objectification Spillover Effect http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-questions/201106/the-sexual-objectification-spillover-effect which links to several actual studies http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.755/abstract

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109000432

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311000288X

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103185710220

I don't think many people have noticed this, certainly not Thunderf00t and I think it can make for a good amend of this section of the page and work towards giving actual sources to refute Thunderf00t's arguements. Shatto (talk) 23:48, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. Do it! Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 23:58, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Did it, if anyone would like to add or edit anything, feel free. Shatto (talk) 07:13, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that constitutes a "resounding yes". One is about priming, which is a well-known but temporary effect (just ask any marketer). Only the "afterglow" article seems spot on, but I can't access the full text and the abstract doesn't clarify the duration or scale of the supposed effect. Most of them deal with the objectification of actual human beings rather than fictional characters. And even if any of the studies actually proved a lasting effect on the perception of women by playing video games that would only be problematic if it was a significant contributing factor to real-life discrimination against women. The claim is "playing games makes people sexist". If the claim were any weaker than that it wouldn't have to be made because it wouldn't be worth debating. 84.44.215.56 (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

General

Some of these "refutation" that you attempt to refute, specifically, do not appear in the article. What gives? --Marlow (talk) 23:18, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

They don't? Could you be more specific? Also did it in a bit of a hurry so I am fixing it. Plus I am still trying to get familiar with the wiki-setting. ^{— Unsigned, by: 37.6.235.165 / talk / contribs}

For example the first point you list doesn't even appear in the article. Nullahnung (talk) 00:38, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. :) 37.6.235.165 (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Is there any other issue with the refutations? I was just linked to this article from Youtube and saw no one went through the trouble criticizing how weak some of these arguments were so I thought I'd take the chance and do it. If you think something needs to be fixed edit it or ask me about it. 37.6.235.165 (talk) 12:00, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

So let's go through the issues so far with your refutations point by point like you requested me to do further above:

Point 1 you didn't exactly refute what you quoted directly, what was in the quote pointed to higher focus on gender in media outside of video games, but you then said something about gender focus inside of video games, so you didn't really address the quote. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The point asserted that the media(all of them) is having more 'female characters' because there is a focus on equality. I pointed out how that's simply wrong because industries are just looking to make money and so things like 'equality' are irrelevant to them unless there is a sociocultural shift that they can make a buck from. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Ok, tell you what, let's make a compromise on this point. I'll put a ^{[citation needed]} tag in the article for the claim about gender equality influencing stuff. Then someone who cares can go find a source about that would support that. If nobody does that, there will remain a ^{[citation needed]} tag there to indicate it as an unsupported claim. Nullahnung (talk) 13:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC) I've replaced the statement that you were taking offense to with a sourced one. Nullahnung (talk) 17:36, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and I have to point out that the point in question was referring to, I quote, "some media", so it was not actually asserting anything about all of the media. You should read what you quote more carefully. Nullahnung (talk) 17:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, I personally don't find this paper to be the best representation of the issue(I won't go in depth unless you want to make a separate thread for the source). I mean, they were asking for personal opinion about individuals who have their own understanding of a given circumstance. But yeah, anyone can read that and make up their mind for if they trust it or not. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 2 I was saying how there was a significant female representation even in hardcore games and you didn't really strongly dispute me on that. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Wait, I showed you one of the most played online games which if anything, it is trying pretty damn hard to draw people from a wide range of demographics and it only have 6-7% females. I did admit there are more girls playing MMO RPGs and you agreed with that but I thought you also agreed that they don't make up a 'big' percentage of the hardcore gaming community. Explain to me how there is no e-sports 'girls' even though e-sports is open to all and 'physical abilities' have nothing to do with gaming. It's just that there are so few women that they aren't up to the level of male players because we simply have more males in gaming and so a higher chance that some of them will be 'pros'. For example if there are 200 people playing a game, 20 of them are females and 180 are males, and there is 1 pro for every 100 people, then females are 10% likely to have a pro in their team while males will have 1 or 2. Bottom line is though, that when there is no crowd for devs to cater to, you won't see those games. If that crowd is 5%, you'll see 5% of games depicting strong female protagonists, if it's 50%, you'd see 50% of games being like that. You never argued against this point up there. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Let's get one thing straight here. Competitive multiplayer games like League of Legends don't really have a plot to follow, so any female characters in them are OBVIOUSLY ones with active roles and that problem doesn't exist there, so we shouldn't even be talking about competitive multiplayer games in the first place and even less about e-sports. (I mean, we can still talk about hyper-sexualisation, look at those ridiculous breasts in LoL, but let's stay on the topic of active and passive roles for now.) My point was that there is a significant proportion of female gamers playing harcore games, but I did NOT mean competitive multiplayer games. Nullahnung (talk) 13:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, AAA titles then. There are a lot of AAA titles that have a good female representation, even games like devil may cry had their female counterparts, from bayoneta to xblade countering prince of persia. But again, the female gamer crowd for those games is 'very' small and even so the industry is still satisfying by making games for both sexes. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 3 & 4 we were talking about Double Dragon and you said it was cool to have the game be that way because technical limitations and catering to a largely male demographic. I didn't make it absolutely clear at the time, and I do apologize for that, but I still maintain that the story didn't have to be a damsel in distress, it could have been a shiny artifact was stolen and they need to go retrieve it or something, would have worked just as well. You can argue catering to a male demographic, but the damsel in distress is still a non-progressive trope that is worth talking about as something to be overcome. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That game was created in the 80's, given that yes, back then they could have made it be a shiny artifact, it was their choice to go for a woman(there were other games with shiny artifacts that you could go after too, that kid with the skateboard, sonic, some Indiana game, etc.). The revision too had to be about the same thing since it's just a revision of an already established game. You can talk about tropes as much as you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the opposite exist too. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Well yeah, and maybe we should applaud the opposite whenever it appears or something. But you must understand one thing that people like to do. They like to talk about where the negative is, never on the positive, because that's not where the annoyance lies. Nullahnung (talk) 13:52, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but when that 'annoyance' is avoidable(e.g. not buying the offensive game), then it becomes simply an attack on those said games. Because there is just nothing you can do, those games already exist, and will keep coming out because a target audience exists. Will you get rid of men who enjoy saving damsels in distress? No. Are you under represented when there are games with strong female side characters/protagonists/plots/interests? No. Then this is just a discussion of what some random group 'likes'. But said group doesn't act like that. They act like there needs to be some big societal shift. And that's my opinion based on what I see. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 5, Mason made an argument about human behaviour in=game, but it doesn't hold up because video games are fiction, that's all there was to that one. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And I explained why that argument doesn't hold up. You cannot exclude videogames from the general videogame world. There are fantasy games, there are realistic games, and both cater to different audiences. Taking a specific theme that you don't like and extrapolating it the way you do over all videogames is just dishonest. Also there can be a fictitious world in a game where women are slaves. That doesn't mean all games are misogynistic or that even that specific game is misogynistic. It just chose that specific setting for whatever reason(plot, randomly, it would sell well, dev's beliefs, trolling, etc). ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Well no, Mason said "would you rather go rescue your loved one or not" or something like that, when faced with the damsel in distress trope. That's missing what the problem actually is, it's NOT about whether you would do it as a human being, it's about the fact that the woman is being confined to the passive role a lot and the man to the active role and that's just an imbalance gamers will experience in many games even today. Nullahnung (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And there are several valid reasons as to why you see that trope more often, which I think we have gone through, and again, you saw most of it in the past, now things have evened out quite a bit and as we see female players rise in numbers we see more games with female leads. For example the new Lara Croft if I reckon they even gave her smaller tits so some certain group wouldn't whine about sexualization, even if Lara was known in the PSX era as a game people would buy only for the sexualization of the character, and why? Because there was almost 'only' a male audience and that was/is just a fact. And now would you look at that, even that character CHANGED to accommodate for the shift in the demographic. Even if Mason missed the point he has explained how culture affected games and other media in the past, and it's also a well known fact for anyone older than 20-30. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 6, Mason was talking against something that Sarkeesian never even said, that's all, and that's all there is to that one. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually Sarkeesian finds the trope of damsel in distress appalling, I gave a reason why it's just another 'story line', like most of the folk songs in my location are about love and there is literally nothing about anything else as if love is all that exists. In games it's different though, there is the damsel in distress trope, and there are a million more others like save humanity, explore this and that, or no tropes of any kind at all like 'reach the flag/door/portal'. Also Sarkeesian forgets another fact, that is common circumstances and relation to reality. You expect more women to be captured and slaved away than men on this planet, that's what people are more used to hear and so games are relating to that by making women the fragile thing that needs protection because people can relate to that more than having to save men who are slaving away(by the way, farcry 3 did this the best, it even threw in a surprise with one of your male friends becoming a sex slave). ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Yeah, well, I'm not sure if relating to the idea that women are fragile and weak is what you should be doing so much if you want everyone to enjoy video games equally. You can have weak female characters, absolutely, but it's no good to have so many of them in relation to all the strong male characters that this is the most common variant. Nullahnung (talk) 13:59, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, that's a market issue, if less games like those sold, then you would see less games of that type. But you won't make the guy playing CoD(which by the way is the majority of gamers, like it or not, or soccer games, or online competitive games) to buy games with strong female leads. That means you will see less games with those. It's just the sad truth of every industry. You don't see me whining why there are less styles for male clothes than female ones. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 7 & 8 you said the damsel trope is okay because that's what we expect to see in real life and games can be realistic, I said realism doesn't apply to games except where it specifically is the point (simulators and Arma) and it's about being able to play active roles where the damsel trope is confining the role to be passive. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And other than what I said in point 6, at this point, this argument only depends on a game-by-game basis since there is such a huge variety of games to choose from. And you can't say there is a problem because you have a list of five games in an industry with a 100.000 games at this point. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

Ok, there's more tropes that create imbalances for female characters in the video game industry than just the damsel in distress. You can disagree about the extent, but at that point we'd either have to cite thousands of video games to out-evidence each other or we'd just have to agree to disagree that there is an imbalance in the industry. Nullahnung (talk) 14:01, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

You don't have to, I agree that there are more male focused games. But I am telling you that's only relevant to the sales, not the culture or anything. If there are 80 males playing games and 20 females, you can't ask publishers to publish 30 male oriented games, 30 female oriented games and 40 unisex games. It will be 50 male games, 30 unisex games, and 20 female games. And that would be a generous estimate. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

As long as there are still imbalances people will keep discussing those. You're probably right that if more of a demographic existed, then more games would exist. But if less games exist, then less of a demographic will be attracted. Do you get what I mean? The demographic and the games influence each other. If you want more equality in either of those, you have to make a change at one end. Maybe the female proportion will increase naturally and the market will adapt and everything will be fine, or maybe the market will heed the calls of feminists and change first and the demographic will adapt as games are more accessible to women. Who knows at this point. You're banking on the former scenario while I'm optimistic about both, to an extent. We will see, won't we? Nullahnung (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 9 you said that's how the internet is and stop taking it seriously. I said if people want to take it seriously then they can take it seriously. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

And I told you people like that shouldn't be taken seriously either. They are fighting an invisible enemy. It's like me blaming society that looks down at my introvert aspects as something 'strange' without considering that 90% of them are extroverts and requesting that THEY change their way of thought because it makes me feel bad. Well, that would be nice, but realistically it just can't happen. ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

But it would be nice, wouldn't it, and why shouldn't we be allowed to be idealistic instead of realist? If everybody was a realist and gave up on making good change happen because it's too difficult, then change wouldn't happen. And I don't think there's that many extroverts out there in comparison to introverts, truthfully, that's just an impression you get because you interact more with extroverts than introverts maybe. Nullahnung (talk) 14:04, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Being a realist doesn't mean not being progressive. You are just being progressive in a manner that is feasable, not trying to go for the utopia from the pile of shit without cleaning up first. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Point 10 you said Anita implies something and that we shouldn't fool ourselves. I say that, maybe I'm fooling myself, but I won't jump to such a conclusion about whether or not she implied such a thing. Nullahnung (talk) 02:49, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Given how dishonest she is and the rhetoric she uses, people like me have every right to hold a defensive position towards even the slightest implication of what her words are. I also pointed out far greater issues than those Sarkeesian cries about. You won't go and fight segregation when you still have slavery, would you? ^{— Unsigned, by: 79.107.161.182 / talk / contribs}

I still don't think I jump to the conclusion that she implied something. So unless you find me a quote that she said sexism in games makes people more sexist, then I'm not changing what's in the article. Nullahnung (talk) 14:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

(Btw, I'm not implying that gender objectifying tropes in video games don't have any effect at all on people in real life, but that's another topic.) Nullahnung (talk) 14:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is the quote: http://youtu.be/X6p5AZp7r_Q?t=21m1s (fix the link to show properly if you want.) And that's just the one from the first video that I have seen and remember, I am pretty sure she has said worse if I remember some of TF's videos, or TAA's, or Rep's or any of the countless people that have criticized her work. I thought people were aware of things like this. 91.140.15.71 (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I've found a quote and changed the article to get rid of the "Anita doesn't seem to be saying this" part. Hopefully it's better now. Nullahnung (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

More concerns, some of them repeated

I'm actually in the same situation as IP, I stumbled across the page and was surprised how weak and selective the refutation of (some of) Thunderf00t's points is. I became somewhat interested in Anita Sarkeesian's ideas after I watched her TED talk, but having read her thesis, in addition to watching some of her videos, I am really surprised she is supposed to be a trained social scientist. Her work does not follow any of the principles of good scientific conduct or systematics. I couldn't help asking myself: What is it (her work) supposed to tell us? That there are computer games that portray women in a stereotypical way? I wouldn't doubt a second that there are. The interesting and relevant question is: How systemic and of which kind are these stereotypes? Does the gaming industry widely portray women in a allegedly demeaning way or is the number of games that do relatively low? Are the stereotypes indicators of misogyny, or were they included for commercial or other reasons, as IP pointed out? Her work does nothing to enlighten us in that respect. It does not provide us, the audience, with a proper, general, view on misogyny in the gaming industry by balancing her examples with insights on the distribution of her stereotypes, both male and female, over a statistically significant sample that would be necessary to give a fair and rational argument. In contrast, her work appears to essentially consist of a presuppositional hypothesis that is then supported by selected "bad games", in-game misbehaviour or blatant misrepresentation. In the scientific community, this is an absolute no-go, an utter disgrace. Outside of science it is at least dishonest, if not a scam. That she apparently does not wish to enter a proper debate and have her arguments held up to scrutiny is only fitting, as sad as it is. So she had to disable comments on her videos because of death and rape threads? That is a false dichotomy. In reality, the "healthy" response would be to either hire a moderator or notify Youtube. Or better the police, who have the resources and training (and moreover the legal authority) to deal with violent criminals such as rapists and murderers.

As for the "implication" that she advocates the view that sexism in games makes people more sexist, I quote:

"The pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective or ultimately incapable has larger ramifications beyond the characters themselves and the specific games they inhabit. We should remember that these games don't exist in a vacuum. They are an increasingly important and influential part of our larger social and cultural ecosystem. The reality is, this trope is being used in a real-world context, where backwards sexual attitudes are already rampant." ("Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games", from 21:00 on.)

Would be nice to have this reflected in the actual refutation of TF's points, considering we allegedly have no hints from the neuroscience POF that sexism in games augments sexism in real-life. Anyhow, as nonsensical the portrayed point 10 appears (although in absence of a reference the reader obviously doesn't know how exactly TF phrased it without going through his x videos), the refutation is particularly weak. What is that supposed to mean, even if games don't advocate sexism doesn't mean it is ok, games shouldn't be a men's club and everybody should be able to enjoy them? Beside the fact that we learned that women make up a "healthy" to "significant" portion of the games community, the whole discussion is explicitly about sexism and demeaning portrayal of women in games. If sexism in games doesn't have ANY effect on the male audience, the whole discussion is just pointless. Everything else is up to the developer and his business decisions. If I as a developer want to cater to a male audience and create a men's club, that is perfectly within my rights. The consumer is not entitled to enjoy my product, he should simply look for something else if he doesn't like it. Why should I let some random group X dictate who my target audience is (in the absence of social implications). Why is that argument on the page?

And what's with the lacking references to Thunderf00t's points anyway? Is the reader supposed to look for the videos him-/herself? Are the quotes even accurate? Why are only 10 arguments mentioned?

It's a pity. I always held RationalWiki in high esteem, but reading that biased page really made me lose some respect. 95.91.241.20 (talk) 21:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It's quite a lengthy post you've got there with a lot of points worth addressing or re-addressing. If I miss responding to some of them or if I misread/misinterpreted, it's because I honestly missed or failed to comprehend them and you should point them out again (nicely, please), but I'm going to attempt to respond here:

1.) So firstly you basically say "Ok, these stereotypes all exist. But how prevalent are they, really? Be more scientific about this, Anita." I would say that yes, her work isn't up to the standard you expect, and at least it isn't labeled as academic work, that would be quite silly given how her work is basically assertions + illustrations, doesn't really provide evidence in the form of statistics. You are correct, I won't dispute you on this. I don't know if you can call it scammy or dishonest, but you could certainly call it "work that lacks the required depth to be interesting".

2.) You said "are the tropes because of misogyny or were they included for commercial or other reasons?" You must first understand that misogyny doesn't have to be "I intended to hate on women". It can be done unwittingly. Yes, a bunch of devs made separate, conscious, deliberate decision to include a damsel in distress trope in a bunch of games, but they certainly didn't intend to discriminate against women with that, it's just they weren't aware that that's what they were essentially doing with the trope by the very nature of what the trope does. No blame on them, I would just like to see these devs grow past it.

3.) You said something about the comments section and how she could just hire some moderator to take the bullet for her and waste his/her time going through all that shit (that's what Youtube comments on controversial videos are 99% of the time). Well... maybe she could try that and see if that works, I guess? But honestly, that sounds like a rather novel idea. Certainly not common enough of an occupation to be generally known by people, to be employed as a "moderator" to sift through Youtube comments for rape/death threats. You can't expect the police to waste their time on that, certainly. Wouldn't blame anyone for not thinking of that.

4.) The quote of her that you provided does seem to strongly imply that sexism in games perpetuates tropes that drive sexist thinking in the real world. You are completely right about that. I shall change it in the article itself to reflect that asap. Thanks for your input, it was useful.

5.) The men's club thing: Even if sexism in games doesn't make gamers more sexist, there still persists the problem that the games seem like a men's club and that women won't be able to enjoy them to the same degree. The point here is that we the people don't actually want video games to be a men's club. Devs are perfectly within their rights to cater to men and only men, of course, and the public is perfectly within their rights to criticise that as an overly narrow focus within those games, if that be the public's opinion. Nobody forcing anyone, just people doing what they want, see.

6.) "Why are there no references to TF's points with timestamps and stuff?" Because when I (well, it was basically just me, originally) wrote this article I was a lazy fucker who didn't think of spending the time and effort to do that. I'm sorry. I apologize for this very real weakness of the article. When I don't have a bunch of deadlines riding on my ass (in about a month or so) (and if I remember to do that) I'll try to go through TF's videos again and fix this.

7.) "Why are there only 10 points? What about the other bajillion things that TF has said?" We all have lives. I choose to not live mine by religiously following, watching and refuting TF whenever he posts about feminism or Sarkeesian. Besides, we've had enough walls of texts just through 10 points. If I include more, I won't be able to discuss this at all without a significant hit to my free time. If you feel that there absolutely needs to be another point, try bringing it up and if someone has the time and inclination, they will get to it. Otherwise, yeah, we all have lives. Nullahnung (talk) 21:57, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I just want to add to 2.) and 3.), I'm happy with the responses to the other points.

To 2.): I probably misphrased the misogyny vs. commercial interests part. What I meant was: Is the presence of, for instance, the damsel-in-distress stereotype a result of misogynic thought in the games industry and/or the community? Or is it included to generally cater to a largely heterosexual male audience, who identify with male lead characters and female love interests and enjoy playing the strong hero? Which some groups might perceive as misogynic even though the stories in principle would work the same way with a female lead and a male damsel? Or other? It seems like "misogyny" is a common and easily applied label nowadays, but it actually is a strong accusation that warrants quite some discussion and I would have hoped for her to give us some depper insights on that.

To 3.): I obviously agree that having the police chase youtube trolls would be a waste of time (I was sarcastic before), and obviously youtube comments are far from being the perfect place for rational discussion. But it's not just youtube comments. She also disabled comments on her feminist frequency blog, which could easily be moderated and in principle would offer a great environment for debate. Many apologetic blogs do that (CrossExamined...), their moderation guidelines are annoying but at least you can engage them in debate. She also has been called out numerous times through youtube reply videos and blogs. I didn't find a single response. Neither to critique in the comments on her facebook channel. Death and rape threads aside, she just doesn't seem too interested in entering an actual discussion about her arguments and having them held up to scrutiny. Which is essentially what Thunderf00t pointed out. And if this is the case (I might be wrong, obviously), it would be fair to reflect this in the actual refutation of his point.--130.149.32.48 (talk) 12:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

2.) It's misogyny as commonly used in an academic setting with social studies. Meaning, it's not a bunch of developers intentionally hating on women, but a systemic bias that is perpetuated in a trope like the damsel in distress that creates an imbalance in how accessible the video games are for each gender.

3.) If what you say is true, it is a little unfortunate and disappointing, imho. If people were doing vile trolling on her webpage too, then maybe the better option would have been heavy moderation, but I don't know if I want to judge her for a lack of engagement. See, I try to judge people for what they do, not for what they have neglected to do. As for what to include in our article about that... first I have to verify the thing about shutting off comments everywhere, then I'd have to think about what that implies and whether that can be included as part of TF's points... I may do something when I have a lot of free time, which I don't now. Nullahnung (talk) 13:59, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, but I do have quite some background in academic social studies, it is actually what I am making a living from, and systemic bias that makes video games less accessible for women is definitely among the weirdest definitions for misogyny that I ever encountered. I want to stress that misogyny in its real meaning specifically refers to hatred and discrimination of women for being female. Endorsement of prejudicial beliefs based on stereotypical conceptions of the sexes is called sexism, which is related to misogyny but is not the same as misogyny. The latter seems to fit much better to what you described. One could also ask to what extent the observed damsel-in-distress trope can be attributed to chauvinism, which again is something different. I'm aware, however, that the common feminist definition of misogyny is more...open to interpretation, I just wouldn't call that "commonly used in an academic setting". But anyway, further discussion of this point is probably moot.--95.91.241.118 (talk) 02:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

(I wrote this while Nullahung was posting the above response and ended up with an edit conflict. So please excuse any redundancy) I'll actually admit that these refutations aren't the strongest. The page could use some work, but most of your issues presented here are pretty misguided.

1. "How systemic and of which kind are these stereotypes?" Sarkeesian isn't a scientist, she's a media critic. She doesn't adhere to the scientific method nor do any media critics that I have ever heard of. It's an almost entirely subjective field. No one calls Yahtzee a scam artist when he doesn't provide scientific proof for his claim that there are too many shitty CoD clones. Is Sarkeesian specifically picking examples that illustrate her point? Obviously, that's what critics do, but it doesn't take a much statistical analysis to realize that the titles she's using account for a significant portion of AAA releases. The exact number is irrelevant, she's pointing out a trend that clearly exists. Maybe you're not interested in this kind of media criticism, that's fine, but it doesn't make Sarkeesian a scam artist.

2. "her work appears to essentially consist of a presuppositional hypothesis that is then supported by selected "bad games", in-game misbehaviour or blatant misrepresentation." I've already covered the idea that she deliberately misrepresents game content in detail above in section six so I wont repeat myself.

3. "Are the stereotypes indicators of misogyny, or were they included for commercial or other reasons, as IP pointed out?" It doesn't matter. The content is misogynistic regardless of the reason it was placed in the game. I'll pull my Michael Bay example out because I think it stands repeating. His movies make a boat load, but it's fallacious to respond to their critical panning with "he's just giving the market what it wants." He probably is, but that doesn't mean his movies don't suck and deserve to be lambasted. I don't think they should be made, but on the other hand I don't think they should be outlawed. Similarly, Sarkeesian isn't calling for the prohibition of sexist video games. She is merely pointing them out in a critical manner.

4."So she had to disable comments on her videos because of death and rape threads?" Thunderfoot claims that this is because she has no interest in valid criticism. Do you really think valid criticism come from Youtube comments? They're the bottom of the barrel when it comes to civil reasoned and constructive discourse. I'd probably shut them off too. I'd assume that Sarkeesian is open to valid criticism of her work (it certainly isn't perfect). The problem, as I discuss in section six, is that the vast majority of the so-called rational criticism (as opposed to the ceaseless and largely uncontested stream pure misogynistic vitriol), Thunderfoot's include, is an attempt, not to engage in constructive debate, but to force her out of the arena by framing her as a liar or scam artist.

5. "If sexism in games doesn't have ANY effect on the male audience, the whole discussion is just pointless." Again, this is media criticism. You may not be interested in this kind of criticism, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. Like any critic, Sarkeesian is criticizing the media itself, not necessarily its effect on society. Though the correlation between the prevalence of misogynistic video games and a reactionary video game subculture known for vitriolically attacking women is certainly troubling regardless of neuroscience's lack of research into the issue.

6."If I as a developer want to cater to a male audience and create a men's club, that is perfectly within my rights." It certainly is within your rights, likewise it's within Sarkeesian's rights to criticize you for doing so. Again, she isn't trying to outlaw these games. --Marlow (talk) 22:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Look, I spent quite some time discerning good and bad research, and Anita Sarkeesian's research definitely is not among the greater achievements of mankind. As for her not being a scientist, yes, I am pretty sure of that. Or at least she is not a good one. But she studied social theory to the point that she completed a master thesis, so I expect her to understand what the difficulties in social studies are and why research is performed the way it is, even if it's cumbersome. The point is that the field is complex enough that we can find ample support for basically any arbitrarily outworldly hypothesis if we just select our info the right way. An insider might know that the hypothesis makes no sense, but an outsider who is only provided with preselected info? That's why the evidence supporting the hypothesis needs to be put in a proper context that allows the audience to arrive at their own conclusions. But how is a non-gamer person supposed to know if her assertions are valid, that the trend she observed is real, that it is misogynic as opposed to chauvinistic, and that there is not, say, an equally large misandrist trend out there? Her videos don't to anything to achieve that aside from her preaching her own views. A wasted chance, really. Or not? Would Yahtzee be a scam artist if he cashed in from videos exposing satanic trends in shitty CoD clones, using preselected examples, milking manipulated christian cash cows? I wonder.

Anyway, don't you think the Michael Bay analogy is rather odd? Misogyny is hate against women because of their gender. But bad Michael Bay movies don't suck because they are Michael Bay movies, they suck because they are bad movies. Their suckiness is also highly subjective, a shitload of people actually enjoy them for being cool and fun and they are the people the movies cater to. And vice versa, you think they suck because of the way they are. Don't watch them then. But misogyny is not looking down on or hating women for how they are (weak, strong, inept, adept,...), it is hating women for what they are (women). Well, you might actually hate Michael Bay movies for being Michael Bay movies, but that is your personal problem then, it does not prove that Michael Bay movies suck. Similarly, you might find that the damsel-in-distress stereotype in games sucks but that does not prove misogyny. Maybe the guys the games are catered to just enjoy being in a fictional situation where a loved one is in distress and they can pretend to be the strong hero who kicks some major ass. Is that necessarily misogynic? Would it be misogyny if the women were the strong hero and her male love interest the damsel? I don't think so, but Anita does. Judging from her first video, she basically has two indicators for the misogynic nature of the female portrayal in video games: General weakness and inability of female characters that is only broken if they act like men, and what she calls subject-object dichotomy. The first point is definitely worth discussing with regard to a possible misogynic nature of the portrayed stereotypes in the context of the societies of the games' countries of origin. As for the second argument, Thunderf00t discusses the subject-object dichotomy for minutes in his first video, applying it to men and the general work force in an attempt to reveal what he thinks is an inherent weakness of the overly simplistic way she presents that argument. It is, however, pretty telling that the joke hospital example of all things made it to this page, completely out of context, with the refutation horribly missing the point of the quote. You might actually want to rewatch his first video. And if you are at it, watch hers as well.--95.91.241.118 (talk) 02:14, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

"But how is a non-gamer person supposed to know if her assertions are valid,that the trend she observed is real, " She gives a lot of examples to the tropes she mentions, some of which I hadn't even realised while I was playing the game myself.

"that it is misogynic as opposed to chauvinistic" It's written as misogynistic and those two are not mutually exclusive.

"Would Yahtzee be a scam artist if he cashed in from videos exposing satanic trends in shitty CoD clones," As opposed to Anita Sarkeesian giving examples from a variety of well-known titles. Great example.

"Misogyny is hate against women because of their gender." You make this incomplete point over and over, so let me correct you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny "Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women."

Just because someone or something doesn't scream abuse at women, doesn't mean it doesn't have aspects of it that are misogynistic. "Looking down on women for how they are", as you say, however would be a very easily-recognized misogynistic action.

"Don't watch them then." A line from Feminist Frequency webpage and from her videos : "it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it’s more problematic or pernicious aspects." I don't thnk this is a correct response to something that you believe is harmful and warrants discussion.

"Maybe the guys the games are catered to just enjoy being in a fictional situation where a loved one is in distress and they can pretend to be the strong hero who kicks some major ass." The entire premise of Tropes vs Women videos is that these overly exhausted concepts are put there as an easy-bake formula. Hence "tropes". These aren't just used-rarely-if-ever concepts. Want to create emotional involvement and male character development, victimise a female love interest(murder, kidnap, assault). Want to create a harsh environment, put sexually portrayed women(generally of no consequence and with no reason regarding the storyline to be portrayed sexually) being brutalised(as opposed to male victims who are not portrayed sexually).

"Is that necessarily misogynic?" The point is it contains misogynistic tropes.

" Would it be misogyny if the women were the strong hero and her male love interest the damsel? I don't think so, but Anita does." Did you actually watch her videos or are you just commenting based on things you've heard from others? She mentions the male damsel-female hero situations and assert that this situation is actually very rare compared to the original(male hero-female damsel). She explicitly mentions the point that the solution to the "Damsel in Distress" trope isn't more of reverse situations (aka male "Damsels") but granting female characters more autonomy. She gives an (I think imaginary) example of a game where the female character is victimised, but instead becoming helpless like in the trope, she responds by fighting back, becoming the hero(subject). The fact that we don't really see many of her example but a lot of examples of the trope, says a lot.

"It is, however, pretty telling that the joke hospital example of all things made it to this page, completely out of context, with the refutation horribly missing the point of the quote." These are simply your assertions and from my perspective, they don't contain any truth.

"And if you are at it, watch hers as well." Maybe you should take you own advice, because you have made several arguments(that I've responded) here that could have been avoided if one had first watched Anita Sarkeesian's videos. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 21:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Damn, now I have another look onto the page and what kind of reply is that. A bunch of randomly picked statements from the wall of text I wrote, plus a wikipedia quote! So I take it that I can throw away all the academic literature discussing the topic because a user-created encyclopedia entry (which is blocked) says something? Nice. And how exactly does your quote contradict or complete what I was writing anyway? Are you implying that by your definition I would be a misogynist for disliking a woman based on her personality? Not exactly the strongest accusation then. Also, misogynic and misogynistic are synonyms but have slightly different connotations. A proper dictionary might help.

That aside, I really suggest you read the discussion before you reply. My point you skipped was that one essentially can support any arbitrary conclusion with loads of selective evidence as long as the available material is large enough. Sarkeesian brings up a couple of examples but as she lacks a proper sample size with corresponding statistical treatment and discussion, the audience is left in the dark regarding the validity and significance of her claims. Or in other words: she could easily have cherry-picked her examples. A non-gamer (in this case) audience would never know, because she doesn't provide them with the information necessary to assess the merits and weaknesses of her arguments. To top it off, not only is there the allegation that she never actually played the games herself and used let's play footage without giving credit, we know already that she seems quite fond in misrepresenting games if it helps her case, where the blocking of comments on both her youtube videos, and since quite some time ago, her feminist frequency page at least has the beneficial effect of keeping people from directly calling her on her manipulation. She makes quite some money from it, so I could totally understand if people call her a scam artist based on that.

But even if we grant that the damsel-in-distress trope is real, the question is still to what extent it has misogynic content. Honestly, I haven't seen a single argument here for what exactly makes the damsel-in-distress trope intrinsically misogynic that goes beyond "because it is". Even in your case, I have no idea how your replies refer to the quotes. If we safely assume that the dominant (or let's say: financially significant) group of gamers is heterosexual males, why exactly would you expect a significant number of sexualized male victims to appear in games geared towards this group? Why would it be surprising that the protagonist is usually male while the storyline is motivated using a female love interest and not vice versa? I really don't think it says quite as much as you think it does. You call it misogynistic, but fact is that a many people are not so convinced, also considering the large amount of games with non-damsel female characters, who pose as protagonists/sidekicks or "objectifiers". And character development...her laughable example of Gwen Stacy (not-game related though) is a pretty good indicator for the level of that argument. A female character with significant development that was a major driving force in Peter Parker's life and whose death was so shocking to the readers that it is thought to have ended the Silver Age. Clearly the epitome of a disempowered random female character. What makes the example particularly ridiculous is the fact that Ben Parker gets killed in the very issue he first appears in by some random thief for the sole purpose of character development. Her father also gets killed during a fight between Spider Man and Dr. Oc. Obviously that's not misandric.

As for the quote regarding "female hero=misogyny", if you had read her thesis you would know that her main assertion (I don't want to call it conclusion) there is that, and I quote, "female roles that are viewed as strong and empowered embody many masculine identified traits, maintaining a patriarchal division of gender roles." That means misogyny, doesn't it? Interestingly you see exactly the earlier identified masculine traits in princess in the game concept she came up with, but now they are considered good, positive traits. Don't get me wrong, the idea seems interesting and I would play it if it's a good game. But it shows that it doesn't seem to matter how a medium portrays women, it is misogynic if she says it is and it is not if she says it is not. That is not a good basis for discussion (which we couldn't do anyway because she disabled comments everywhere).

" "It is, however, pretty telling that the joke hospital example of all things made it to this page, completely out of context, with the refutation horribly missing the point of the quote." These are simply your assertions and from my perspective, they don't contain any truth."

That is alright, I'm not convinced that your assertions contain too much truth either. Although I wonder what assertions you are referring to here. In his longer reply video to the tropes vs. women series, Thunderf00t (who I am not a particular fan of) discusses the subject-object dichotomy at length, from minute 11:00 until roughly the end, i.e. for about 25 minutes. You would know that had you watched his videos. The hospital example is from the first, shorter, of TF's reply videos where it is used as a silly example, among others, for why the version of the subject-object dichotomy she presents is overly simplistic and in that form can't be taken seriously. You would know this had you watched his videos. Now the refutation to the hospital quote does not defend the subject-object dichotomy but maintains that Sarkeesian did not say that it is bad to help people in real life. Sure, but TF's point specifically is that her argument would imply that, so how is the refutation not missing the point? The subject-object dichotomy, which btw is a central point in Sarkeesian's argument, is not even mentioned, especially not in the TF quote that the page refuted. So how is that quote not out-of-context then?

Now, pretty much all, if not all, quotes in the refutations this page is about are taken from the first video, which would be alright and easily recognizable for the reader if the article had actual references to his video(s). In the form it has at the moment, the article, besides distorting TF's arguments by paraphrasing them, pretends that the hospital example is actually Thunderf00t's opinion when it was just an intentionally silly example that was significantly elaborated later. Whether you think his arguments contain any truth is not important, that is what the refutation is there for. However, one really wonders how much effort it is for the authors of the article to add references to this one single video. Apparently there is not much interest in doing so. Well, I thought that is Conservapedia style but I looks like I got proven wrong.95.91.241.87 (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I told you I'd get to doing it, maybe in a week or so, when I don't have a bunch of deadlines in real life! Stop bringing it up already. Nullahnung (talk) 22:21, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Formatting issues

The hell did you do Null? I literally lost 100 lines+ because of you... fuck man. --;^{— Unsigned, by: 91.140.15.71 / talk / contribs}

I'm sick of cleaning up after you when you completely break the formatting with your messy insertions! HEre's the edit summary I used to revert you which you apparently didn't read: "can you not fragment people's posts? It leaves behind an unsigned mess that's hard to follow. Make the effort and organize it neatly" Nullahnung (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I would be more inclined to help you if you explained to me what you exactly want me to do. As it is I am just trying to do what you guys are doing.(Also captcha: Filthy Dirty Mess) 91.140.15.71 (talk) 18:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll give you an idea for structured discussions: Keep your posts as one and have a numbering system for each separate point you discuss, like this: 1.) point.

I'll try not breaking in the middle of the enemy's posts and leave an unsigned mess for you null. :) ^{— Unsigned, by: 91.140.15.71 / talk / contribs}

I think it's troubling that you consider people who point out women-unfriendly tropes in games and their supporters as your enemies. >.> 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Sub-points can be like this: 1.1) sub-point. Nullahnung (talk) 18:33, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"This statement also carries the assumption that the YouTube comment section is a place where well-reasoned debates happen."

It is physically impossible to read that sentence out loud with a straight face. Abed Nadir (talk) 00:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

At least Youtube doesn't have a 140 character limit, unlike Twitter. Twitter is the worst if you want discussion that involves anything other than strong-and-compact opinion flung after strong-and-compact opinion. Nullahnung (talk) 17:31, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Sources are lacking

The articles sources are mainly youtube videos. The channels are not exactly established sources. 128.214.53.253 (talk) 12:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Two are PDFs, one is an article, two are youtube videos. If you don't think we have enough references that's fine, but it isn't mainly youtube videos we rely on. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 12:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes two is a bigger number than three, it depends how desperate you are to undermine an argument --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 13:42, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Hitman

I'd like to brew this some more. I think all I really need are references.

Anita lied about women in the strip club in Hitman Absolution.

On the surface this sounds like he has a point until you remember the name of the video is "Women as Background Decoration." In this respect, the women in this scene are portrayed as eye candy and toys but nothing else (in other words, why have them there at all?). Aside, the Let's Play videos he found to support his claim that they are optional are often from more professional players, which do not reflect the entirety of people who play video games. Also, Anita could have used a scene from the same game where shooting some specific hooker items from a sniper nest rewards the player with a dancing lingerie model (which can be shot) which only would further illustrate the point.

Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 14:34, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

We should show the time stamps of when Tf00t and Sarkeesian said what. I'll try to find the time stamps for the ones from Tf00t's first refutation video when I have some more time. If you could find the time stamp for the "why is violence ok but sexism isn't" argument from Tf00t (last point in our list currently), that'd be great (since you added it). Also for this Hitman one we should describe clearly what Tf00t said, clearly what Anita said (with time stamps) and then we'll be able to draw coherent and clearly-laid out arguments from this basis. And we should provide basic info to set the context where necessary. Currently just by reading what you've posted above, a reader who just came by would have absolutely no idea what you are on about unless they put in the effort to wade through a whole bunch of videos, which we cannot expect them to do.

I just think it's really lacking right now and I'd like to have some kind of quality control here. Nullahnung (talk) 14:54, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

F-

1.

“They are also still portrayed as the weak character often enough that Sarkeesian's point holds. Just because you have Samus gunning down Space Pirates doesn't mean that there aren't systemic issues.”

Her point that there are statistical differences in how genders are portrayed? Don’t remember her counting, but conceded.

Her general point / conclusion that there’s sexism in movies and video games? Requires further argumentation.

Then, there’s this word “systemic” – what does it mean, exactly? Does it amount to anything more than “statistical”?

The emulation of previous, popular works and the use of familiar tropes is one of the factors contributing to this statistical difference – does that count as “systemic”?

Appealing to majorities within target audiences is another – just as the previous one, it’s something that constantly happens all over art, media and entertainment: does that amount to it being “systemic”?

Individuals have certain preferences regarding their escapist fantasies or choice of leisure activities, which are a result of their psyche – which is a system. Those individuals form groups and societies in which they influence each other in a myriad of ways, and give emergence to various prevailing patterns – that is a system, as well. Does that mean that a bunch of people creating and liking whatever they want or prefer is something that is “systemic”?

I honestly don’t know - but for some reason I’ve got this nagging suspicion that the “system” in this sentence doesn’t just refer to masses of people freely enjoying themselves in the ways they want, but rather serves as an euphemism for something much more sinister ;)

It does add that it’s an “issue”, after all – but it’s even debatable how much of an issue it really is.

Just because Sarah Connor kicks ass in T2, doesn’t mean there aren’t statistical issues… right? Okay; let’s say for every Sarah Connor and Ripley, there are 10 Luke Skywalkers, 10 Neos and 10 Ahnolds; apparently the idea is that the brain just takes all these examples, inserts them into 32 equally sized, wrinkly compartments, and then creates a 1:1 mirror image of the input in which female heroines are a rarity in fiction while male heroes are commonplace. So, see, it’s an ISSUE, alright!

Well, not necessarily – a very likely outcome is that the two female ones, by virtue of standing out from the grey rest and/or making a strong enough impression, get bigger compartments on their own while the others just sort of get mixed together into a few generalized blobs of chiseled man flesh, resulting in a much more equalized or altogether equal image.

This effect is merely yet another reason why all these “how often this, how frequently that” statistics matter much less in reality than certain bean-counting idealists may believe. Is it a worthy issue to bring up? Sure, but every time someone looks at something like Sarkeesian’s analysis and finds themselves surprised at the “disparity”, it only serves to dampen its implications.

2.

“This is a rather narrow-minded understanding of the video gaming market, which counts a healthy number of women.[3]“

“Healthy”? In the source, it says “47%”, as in ALMOST HALF – so why this timid? Could it have to do with the lack of certain qualifiers, such as how much those 47% play and buy in comparison, or whether they also gravitate towards the genres featured in Anita’s videos and claimed to be “male-dominated”?

Whichever the case, it’s true: when you zoom in, the market does work in more complex ways than simply “bunch of consumers want x, company gives them x”; some examples:

-a large portion of the audience is sufficiently apathetic to give the creators considerable free rein on where to take things: as long as the crowd’s base desires are covered, they’ll be fine with whatever.

-a probably smaller, more artistically inclined segment may be more interested in checking out what (certain) creators come up with than in getting a product from them that meets a particular check list; alternatively, they’re just the “followers” to the devs’ “leaders”, grabbing whatever comes out – both variants mean even more free rein for those calling the shots, which can be used to express personal worldviews.

-thanks to corporate / military / etc. sponsors, creators may feel inspired to include other people’s worldviews into the mix, as well.

-commentators and critics can spawn new interests in present audiences, while competent marketing can spark the interest of new ones; political ideologues pretending to be critics have that power, too.

However, none of those factors negate the major one, namely that companies make money by giving their target audiences what they want – and when that is exactly what you find in reality, no further explanations for the given circumstances are required.

If half of the audience is, indeed, comprised of women, then the most obvious conclusion is that… they’re too apathetic or too satisfied to start voting with their dollars, giving the (largely male?) developers free rein to do what they’re used to or want; and if what they want is to channel their sexism into their fiction, or is in any way motivated by “unconscious” sexism, it’s something that needs to be demonstrated first.

The struggle against “narrow-mindedness” goes both ways!

“And really should any medium be exempt from major societal issues?”

Any work that doesn’t claim (or appear to claim) to represent societal realities, is exempt from societal issues, yes.

Or, to put it even more accurately: nothing that happens in such a work is a societal issue in the first place.

“(This is the equivalent of saying "most gamers are white, so we shouldn't address racism.")”

You may feel free to address it, once you prove it.

Scenarios that appeal to “white audiences”, involving things such as most characters being white, or white being the diverse standard, colored the exotic/stereotypical exception, are only racist when channelling or intentionally validating racist attitudes – if no claim of realism in that area can be demonstrated, you’re holding an empty sack and have nothing to address.

3.

“In Thunderf00t's eyes, stupidity makes money, so that's a good thing.”

Well, for one, stupid / simple-minded tastes in entertainment aren’t sexism, so they’ve got that going for them.

And for another, they don’t amount to stupidity anymore than the enjoyment of white-centric fantasies amounts to racism.

Thirdly, they’re as “good” of a “thing” as shaky-cam is – a matter of taste. But it’s definitely a good thing that all of these tastes are accounted for ;)

“The use of simple tropes like saving a "damsel in distress" might also arguably be less problematic in genres which, by design, generally emphasize fun and challenge over complex stories and nuanced characterizations.”

Wrong – something cannot be “less problematic” in X than in Y, when it’s not problematic in the first place, whether in X or in Y.

Games that are all about “fun and challenge” are exempt from this stuff anyway – and messing with the characterization and narrative complexity faders doesn’t automatically affect the realism and demographic representation faders: if you want your “exemption” suspended, I’m afraid you’ll really need to go through that extra effort.

A Sherlock Holmes story can be as complex as it gets, and have characters and motivations as nuanced as it gets, and still take place in Disco Gotham, unfold according to narrative structures rather than realistic probabilities, and be ENTIRELY COMPRISED OF WANGS.

“But, in general, the modern gaming industry is capable of producing games with depth and originality. Over-reliance on the "damsel in distress" smacks of laziness and creative stagnation, which can be detrimental in an industry that often thrives on innovation.”

You’re not art critics, you’re political ideologues – running your mouth about “originality” and “creative stagnation” or worrying about what is “detrimental to the industry” is not in your character.

4.

“While some sophisticated games do emphasize love as a motive, the shallower ones have the woman blatantly portrayed as barely more than a passive, inanimate object;”

Well, wouldn’t be shallow otherwise would they :)

“as a player it is hard to care for a figure with no real characterization.”

There, you’re doing it again.

No further exceedances of authority will tolerated!

“It's become such a problem with films using the trope that Hollywood nearly faints every time the damsel has an actual personality.”

Um yeah. Not sure what a “Tangled” is, but modern Hollywood pretty much came about thanks to a movie that had a proactive damsel with a sparkling personality as a main character in it, so excuse me while I cry and weep in the corner over fucking “Tangled”.

5.

“This is a false dichotomy. Mason's argument here hinges on the assumption that the only possible responses to such a situation are to be a vigilante or an apathetic jerk who does absolutely nothing as thugs kidnap a loved one. In reality, the "healthy" response would be to call the police, who have the resources and training (and moreover the legal authority) to deal with violent criminals. But of course video games are fiction. Video games allow players to enjoy doing things they can't in reality, like pounding the crap out of bad guys.”

Okay. Two circumstances to make this paragraph even more pointless and effete than it already is:

1) The above doesn’t apply in any setting that lacks functional, reliable law enforcement (or any the protagonist coulf turn to), or in which the hero/protagonist is better than the police or has better chances at getting it done. I know you said it doesn’t matter whether it applies or not as it’s all about fun anyway – just saying.

2) Thunderfoot is pro gun control and harbours silly delusions about things like the police arriving in time to save you from home invaders – I’m sure he doesn’t need to be told to call the cops if the mafia abducts his cat or something.

And one argument that you’ve forgot, to make up nine:

3) Anita has said a lot of crazy things, such as that DiD is a problem because it’s about a man performing his “patriarchal duty” to get his possessions back or something – however, suggesting that rescuing women is actually a wrong thing to do for the protagonist as staying at home sipping tea would be the politically correct action instead wasn’t one of them, at least not as far as I can remember.

So technically he used a strawman there ;)

6.

“Mason's argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum. Sarkeesian's video criticizes the use of the damsel in distress trope in fiction. At no point does she suggest there's anything wrong with acting to save women (or anyone, for that matter) in distress in real life.”

But in the cases where the fiction is supposed to reflect real-life values (which isn’t the same as real-life probabilities, real-life skills or real-life statistics, btw), the same applies in fiction as it does in reality.

It’s like saying it’s okay to fight against evil emperors in reality, but not so much writing stories about people fighting evil emperors – doesn’t make any sense at all.

Now, how absurd his hospital analogy was, is another question and unrelated to this one. Might’ve been a bit reaching, I don’t really care though.

7.

“While a game being shallow to the point of characters having no depth is fine,”

It’s not fine, it *might* *arguably* be fine – stop contradicting yourself!

“gameplay often takes priority),”

You mean it’s… you mean it’s okay if I don’t really care about the characters because the gameplay is sufficiently interesting/demanding? I thought that was (less) problematic.

“the nature of the trope creates an imbalance in active roles where women tend to be more passive”

So the women in those games being more passive has bugger-all to do with sexism, got it - moving on.

“(replaceable by glowy objects like lamps).”

Well, that would take away the IDEA of saving a damsel, wouldn’t it – an idea presented in the most schematic, simplistic form imaginable, as an immobile 2D cutout drawing standing in a room, but present as an idea nonetheless!

“Two wrongs don’t make a right”

No, but they might make two equal wrongs, hence preventing inequality; if they were wrongs to begin with, that is.

“As for the argument that both women and men face the same problem of unreachable body ideals presented in video games... When you've got women with big, bouncing boobs and men with chiseled abs and hard pecs, you've got to ask yourself: Which one is more flattering and empowering? Who are they trying to appeal to, mainly?“

Which kind of flattering and empowering – the physical kind, or the social?

Physically, abs and pecs can lift weights and are themselves an accomplishment; big boobs can’t lift weights, and aren’t an accomplishment. And while a good-looking, healthy figure and appearance can be seen as a testament to a healthy, disciplined lifestyle and hence be flattering, it’s usually not immediately perceived as such, but rather something that’s just there. This applies to both genders, obviously.

Socially and psychologically, however, there is hardly a difference – a good-looking man with muscles is attractive to women and commands a high social rank among men; a good-looking woman with boobs is attractive to men and commands a high social rank among women.

The former may have its origin in such a man having the ability to protect and beat to a pulp, and the latter in stuff about “fertility” or whatever – but in modern Western middle and upper class society, those functions take a far backseat and what really matters is the looks and the psychological effect. Words like “hot” or “charismatic” are applicable to both examples, which makes them equally flattering and equally empowering… and equally “objectifying”.

Is there an all-encompassing, area-covering compatibility between what either gender wants to look like / finds empowering / looks up to / feels comfortable with, and what the other gender finds attractive? Well, no - but a vast area is covered nonetheless.

And combined with the fact that being attractive to the other sex by looking and acting the "right way" is one of the largest components of a typical idealized image of one's own, this circumstance makes whatever aims to please one gender very likely to appeal to the other, as well.

Has the difference between identifying with a playable character / protagonist and viewing them from a 3rd person perspective been considered here? The fact that watching some large hunk who’s much better and bigger than you, doing things you could never do, and who strangely reminds you a lot of your “superiors” at the gym, is somehow not quite as empowering as imagining being said hunk yourself? No.

The fact that the playable character / protagonist can function both as an escapist alter ego as well as an “unreachable ideal” (the main point in Thunderfoot’s paraphrased argument on this page)? No – with men it’s only the former (which is a relief, since this one’s actually MORE unreachable than the other one), with women always the latter. It is known.

Has the dichotomy between becoming your playable character on the one hand, and controlling them like a string puppet on the other, been considered? No – you control the hot woman like a string puppet because she wouldn’t give you a second glance in real life, but you don’t control the giant hunk like a string puppet who could squish you like a bug in real life. Simple.

Has cross-gender identification been taken into account in this rebuttal? No. Women may enjoy smashing rocks as a giant troll cobold, but in no way as a large hunk; men find the idea of identifying with the hot chick wooing her enemies and then completely kicking their asses completely repulsive, cause it’s, like, *so* gay.

It also hasn’t considered that, in an escapist setting typical of action/genre games, nothing prevents female characters from being inhumanly strong without the help of any visible muscle mass; in no way empowering? The ability to punch zombies onto the roof of the cathedral while still looking as pretty and feminine as you want? Not one bit? Okay.

The notion that charisma, incl. sexual, is easily equated with physical power on an instinctive level and thus in an idealized fictional setting, goes without saying, right? How disappointing and depressing, isn’t it, to learn that no matter how charismatic you are, no matter how much sway you hold and how much attention you command, this won’t prevent you from being crushed by a falling brick, or an angry dude who’s stronger than you? If only there was some kind of imaginary world one could escape to, in which, free of such nihilistic reality checks, the cooler you are, the hotter you are, the more your eyes flash with power and determination and seduction, the more zombie cave trolls you can propel onto the roof per time unit…

The hot Terminatrix from “Rise of the Machines”, does that work because of the “contrast”, or because a hot feminine seductress that can punch through concrete just feels like that’s how it should be?

A lot of important things left unconsidered :)

Anyway… control – whom are they trying to appeal to, mainly? Men, as established - however, women may be caught in the crossfire.

8.

„it is only natural to have this trope”

The “naturalistic fallacy”, when applied to escapist entertainment, is no fallacy at all – after all, doing things that “feel natural” is kind of its whole point to begin with; and as it happens, reflecting various aspects of reality, i.e. “writing what you know”, is one of those things

Saying that it’s NECESSARY to have this trope, would be a fallacy; saying that men being stronger is a good thing because that’s how nature is (and fiction should reflect that because it’s supposed to show “good things”) would be an actual naturalistic fallacy; the statement “it’s natural to have this trope, therefore it’s good to have this trope” would also be one, except that, as I’ve just said, it actually is a valid argument in this case.

The phrase as it stands on this page, though, doesn’t even look like an argument from nature, as it’s merely stating that the trope exists for natural reasons and hence doesn’t need some sinister agenda or prejudice as an explanation.

“Yes, there are certain realities of present-day sex differences in humans. One should note, however, that as in the real world, physical strength in video games is but one factor in one's stature in society and combat (you still have other stats like cunning, agility, intelligence, etc.) and no factor at all when it comes to guns.”

Correct – but equating physical strength with power (or social status) is one of those primal instincts many humans have within them, which is why it gets projected onto fictional arenas.

“More importantly, none of that even matters, because unlike the real world, video games are an artful medium, mostly free from the physical restrictions of reality.”

Well, it does matter, as reflecting reality is as integral a part of fiction as altering it.

However, when it comes to the altering… am I crazy for assuming that you’re okay with certain kinds of altering, but not so much others? Showing men and women to be equally strong is cool, maybe even a MUST – but if the work doesn’t show as many women as men even though in reality they’re of equal number, then that’s not so great anymore is it :)

At any rate – saying that this aspect of reality is the cause of similar patterns in fiction, isn’t the same as saying it SHOULD be that way for this reason.

You’re responding to the wrong statement.

However: your acknowledgement of this aspect of reality, and resulting disagreement with Anita who said it was a “culturally ingrained myth”, definitely deserves to be applauded…

“Mason is also engaging in equivocation here, since in her video Sarkeesian doesn't question the existence of physical strength differences,”

Oh.

“but rather takes issue with the portrayal of women as "frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures."”

If a bunch of stories portray individual women as such, and no claims are made about those individuals representing all women in that fictional world, then that “naturalistic” argument is kinda valid in the sense that those do exist – and further arguments are required in order to demonstrate that it’s an “issue”.

If a story depicts a world in which all women are like that, then it no longer applies as now altering reality is the name of the game; when it’s done with the premise that it does depict reality, or how reality should be, then accusations of sexism are valid; when not… further arguments are required in order to demonstrate that it’s an issue.

However, if all the women in a particular game are strong, issue can definitely be taken with them still being sexualized; and if they aren’t sexualized, then it’s an issue that they’re basically female versions of men. Even a broken clock ;)

9.

This particular point of his is, indeed, kinda cheesy – while “isn’t it interesting that whenever you go to a creationist/fundamentalist video, or a feminist video, the comments are disabled? I’m not saying anything, but ISN’T IT INTERESTING”, at the end of the day anyone can disable comments on their webspace for whatever reason and it doesn’t really amount to more than nagging suspicions and… interesting patterns.

Suspicions that would be significantly less nagging, I should add, and patterns that would be all that less interesting, were she actually addressing the responses made to her from outside her channel… such as the one dealt with on this RW page.

“Sarkeesian disabled comments on her videos on account of being subjected to death threats, rape threats, and vicious misogynistic and anti-Semitic insults in the comment sections. Not only do these kinds of comments constitute ad hominem arguments, but many of them are legally actionable.”

Well that’s what she says – his point is that it’s a pretence, but anyway.

“This statement also carries the assumption that the YouTube comment section is a place where well-reasoned debates happen.”

They often do! Depending on channel/video/topic, sometimes reasoned debates is ALL that you’ll find.

“At the time of recording, YouTube comments were limited to 500 characters,”

But not to 1 comment ;)

“had very poor threading support,”

I think it’s gotten worse now?

“and placed the onus of moderation on the uploader (very few of whom actually act on it),”

Well she could’ve, being the uploader :D

But anyway.

“The Google+ integration might have brought theoretically unlimited character counts, but has done little to change this culture.”

Ironic, given how battling those “racists and sexists and misogynists” seemed to be one of their stated justifications for fucking up the comment system – but I digress…

“Most people simply don't have the time to wade through mountains of shit just to address the very rare good point”

But how do we know of this ratio if the comments are disabled ;)

“and talk to every individualanti-vaxxer protesting outside the White House”

I wonder who the real anti-vaxxers are… could Anita Sarkeesian, indeed, be the Richard Nixon to Watergate’s Gamergate?

10.

“through perpetuating tropes outside of video games or otherwise, so we can't say for sure.”

Assuming that certain things are more likely to influence real views than others, is quite reasonable – for example, inaccurate portrayals of first aid, or the danger of “flesh wounds”, actually cause many viewers to believe what they see and come away with false notions of reality.

It’s virtually a certainty that mild “sexism” in fiction, as opposed to something as removed from reality as, say, the Gor novels, can shape some people’s attitudes or views about gender to some degree. Just as, I should add, the consumption of media in which no strength difference between genders is shown can leave a viewer with the notion that it doesn’t exist – it works both ways.

However, all of this is nothing but a giant red herring: it’s not the job of entertainment to provide reliable information about the world, it’s the responsibility of education to filter “information” received from entertainment and other unreliable sources.

“It is important to remember that just because sexism in video games may not make us more sexist doesn't mean it's ok.”

Nope - not being meant literally (i.e. making claims about reality) does. Not being sexism in the first place helps, too.

“The medium shouldn't be a men's club”

The correct term is “sausage fest”, and while one can’t say that it necessarily “should”, it very well *can*.

Trying to forcing a shift of demographics on it is pointless and misguided – encouraging it is fine, but don’t start blaming people if it doesn’t work. This is an area of freedom – the freedom to create and to abandon, the freedom to enjoy and ignore. If people don’t run with your ideas, too bad, better luck next time.

“and the best way to have everyone eventually be able to enjoy it as equally as possible is to not have a bunch of disparities in the way male and female characters are treated”

Wrong – the main road towards having more women enjoy the medium, is including stuff in it that appeals to women. Removing disparities may very well be a part of it; but so may games filled with nothing but men in thongs or a bunch of timid, vulnerable slave girls being manhandled by their chiseled masters.

Don’t complain if whatever ends up attracting more women to gaming ends up being something you don’t like, or what you think will attract them (such as changing what your character looks like) ends up not attracting many at all. As in, don’t follow in the footsteps of Anita, who’ll definitely be complaining about something like that just like she complained about Twilight - a fantasy appealing to women involving a passive damsel and a stalker vampire.

Also: disparities in general, not disparities within individual works, or subgenres for that matter! Things Y should be *balanced out* with things X, never *replaced* or “diluted in”: creating games only the half of which appeals to you on the basis that the other half is for others to enjoy, or without the stuff you like on the basis that others won’t like it, will result in no one enjoying anything - equally so, of course.

Oh, this RW page may just get away with denying ever having said otherwise – but Anita “pernicious aspects” Sarkeesian, once again, kinda doesn’t have that luxury.

“and in the way female gamers or games industry employees are treated”

Sexism in the workplace is a different topic, and wasn’t part of Thunderfoot’s paraphrased argument on the left column.

Very, very weak rebuttal - almost everything in it is wrong. Keep in mind, this is the page that’s supposed to convince the reader why Thunderfoot’s “crusade against feminism” is wrong and “ill-Informed”… the impressionable reader proceeds to click on that link, and THIS is what he sees?? I expect better of you!

Not in terms of accuracy, of course, I meant in terms of better supporting Sarkeesian’s argumentation no matter what, in accordance with this wiki’s stated goal ;) 93.223.33.194 (talk) 02:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Dunderfoot's latest gaff of hot air.

So Thunderf00t recently posted a new video that apparantly tries to claim Anita's a hypocrite for saying 'women can't be sexy', but 'it's okay to be gay'...somehow. I'm not touching that video with a ten foot pole, but will there be a rebuttal posted? ^{— Unsigned, by: 68.146.50.218 / talk / contribs}

I don't think that fits here. It would fit more on his general page. Either way though, I'm not sure what we should say apart from he doesn't understand the difference between objectification and sexiness. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 01:02, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Not Defending Mason

I personally think he takes things way too far and makes it more than about the games, he makes it about feminism as a whole. It muddles the argument severely and his attempts to dismiss everything Sarkessian says, regardless of whether she is right or not, doesn't help. I feel making a counter-point would serve things better. Acknowledge where you feel Anita is right, but offer a response to that. Like, how despite being a damsel in a number of games, Zelda is far from passive in a number of the more recent ones. That she is never portrayed as a prize and is seen as a kind and just ruler that needs to be returned to power. Instead of focusing on debunking Sarkessian's claims, one should try to add a counter to it and suggest that "Maybe there are positives to this character too."

However, I do still feel Sarkessian can be just as overzealous, overlook things and get things wrong. Her suggestion that the women in the random crime encounters in Watch Dogs are there to be killed, neglects the fact that men will just as likely be victimized as well. And that the goal isn't to let the victims be killed, it is to step in and save them when they're just about to be victimized. I won't deny that Watch-Dogs has some unsettling sexist tropes within it, fridging for example. However, like Bowling for Columbine's various mistakes concerning Canadian gun laws and the nature of the NRA's actions after the school shootings, errors like this detract from the argument and when Sarkessian gets things wrong or misrepresents the games she speaks about she does as much damage to the discussion of sexism in games as people like Mason do when they try to ignore the discussion altogether. I do feel there needs to be a discussion, that we do need to talk about sex and gender in games. We need to stop shit like in Retribution Ride to Hell from happening! Cause that garbage is seriously insulting to all gamers, women and men.

But I have to wonder, at this point, is it possible to criticize Sarkessian without being labelled and misogynistic prick? Or at the very least, not looking like one? I ask because it bothers me. I want to defend my favorite games when I feel they deserve to be. I want to say I don't feel FemShep is just cheap/easy cut and paste of male Shep, that such a description is unfair to the character. But I fear of coming across like Thunderf00t or Sargon of Arkkad in this discussion. I don't want to debunk crap, I actually want to have a discussion, an actual, real, discussion that doesn't play out like I'm some whiny little sexist brat. Is there still a way to do that? Can I say I don't agree with Anita Sarkessian and not come off as an asshole, or has everyone with less sense than me ruined it by making it one big anti-feminism rally? Please, I'd like to know if any sense of discourse is possible anymore. ^{— Unsigned, by: 74.15.133.22 / talk / contribs}

Anita Sarkeesian's analysis of video games is so uncontroversial to everyone else in the world that it's only random nitpicking of minute facts like the Watch Dogs stuff or Hitman that people use to try to discredit her whole videos when she's just going "These are common storytelling elements in video games and they're not good representations of women characters". What is there to debate about that?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

That it's wrong to suggest there's nothing of value from the female characters because of their relations to the tropes, that suggesting characters like FemShep aren't good enough, that there's no defense one can offer in response to anything she says. Those points are debatable, it's not just nitpicking here, it's perception. I'm talking about Zelda being presented as always weak or a damsel, or that Peach is completely useless, or that FemShep is just a dude with tits or that The Darkness' Jenny's death scene can't be interpreted in a different way. Art is all about interpretation, there isn't just one answer or way to look at some. The same holds true for video games, like any form of art. There are feminists who defend Ariel in Little Mermaid, feminists who defend Jurassic World's Claire, hell there are Feminists who defend Power Girl's costume and Harley Quinn's constant screw up personality. If those women and men can rectify their beliefs about gender equality in those films/comics and offer a different take on it, why can't someone who generally agrees with feminism and believes in its general message not offer a counter-point in regards to gaming? Admit to a problem, but actually bother to give a different side and present positives that come with the bad? Because tropes aren't necessarily bad by themselves, context matters. There's a book out there called "The Supergirls" that looks at the long history of women in comics and how they've been portrayed. While the author does admit to the shortcomings of those characters, he spends just as much time pointing out the positives and detailing the advances as their characters evolved. Just because Thunderf00t and others are being jackasses about this subject, doesn't mean it should be closed off to any form of discourse and discussion. If we did that, we'd never learn or reconsider anything in the first place. Discussion about these subjects shouldn't just be halted, they should be engaged. Isn't that what Anita wanted in the first place? Real actual discussion? Why suggest that everything she says is beyond reproach because a bunch of assholes have decided to be complete dicks to her? How is that any fairer than people like Sargon of Akkad suggesting there is no real problem and the status quo is just fine? I believe in talking about this issue like an adult instead of like a gamergate baby. Why is that wrong?^{— Unsigned, by: 74.15.133.22 / talk / contribs}

The point of it is that it is not really a debate. These are just her critiques. This is her interpretation through feminist analysis. She spent 6 videos looking at negative portrayals of female characters before branching out into positively portrayed female characters and negative depictions of masculinity (last I read about it at least). People can have different viewpoints on these things but she's not there to debate these viewpoints. She's presenting her own and being as Women's Studies 101 about it as she can. Make your own video series if you feel you have this much to say. But don't couch it in terms like "I don't agree with Anita Sarkeesian because..." because that just feeds into the attacks on her. Have your own opinions on a topic but don't automatically assume they should be 100% contra to Sarkeesian's and insist that you're right and she's wrong. And you better not be making this out in the context of "She doesn't allow comment sections on her videos" because that's just bullshit.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:43, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

"negative depictions of masculinity (last I read about it at least)." Coming soon. Its a new series in the brewery. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 09:48, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Her analysis of video games is scarcely uncontroversial. I think much of what she has to say is correct, but she also at times overreaches, and she deserves to be heartily (but respectfully) criticised when she does. That's not "nitpicking", it's the kind of treatment everyone doing what she does (cultural criticism) deserves. Blacke (talk) 08:26, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The only thing controversial about her is that she's a woman and 4chan targetted her because of that. Pointing out minor mistakes in the facts she lays out is nitpicking. There has been little to no valid criticism of her video series that hasn't been steeped in vile personal attacks on her or used as a weapon against her.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:43, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Of course, Ryulong, absolutely everything she has ever said is completely correct and no sane or rational or moral person could possibly disagree with anything she has ever said. Silly me, I forgot that her opinions are the Bible for the new era. The Chicago Statement needs to be updated: for "Bible", substitute "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" --Blacke (talk) 10:11, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Pointing out mistakes would seem to be a legitimate pasttime, and a potential source of (much more mild) controversy (the greater source being of course as you describe). Now nitpicking in the negative sense is when you take that and say "this is a bit wrong ergo the point about sexism in vidya games falls down," which of course some people do. WalkerWalkerWalker 10:23, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I said "much of what she has to say is correct, but she also at times overreaches". There is sexism in some video games, and some of her examples of it are completely genuine; on the other hand, some of her other examples of it are on the weak side. That is scarcely "this is a bit wrong ergo the point about sexism in vidya games falls down". Ryulong just can't stand any criticism of his idols, no matter how mild that criticism may be. --Blacke (talk) 10:54, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest that I was accurately describing your commentary. Apologies if I confused. WalkerWalkerWalker 10:56, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

No worries, sorry if I misread you. Blacke (talk) 11:01, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where Ryulong said anything resembling "absolutely everything she has ever said is completely correct" or where he's shown severe intolerance towards even mild criticisms of "his idols". Strawmanning much? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 11:02, 30 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

When I said "I think much of what she has to say is correct, but she also at times overreaches, and she deserves to be heartily (but respectfully) criticised when she does", and he responded "Pointing out minor mistakes in the facts she lays out is nitpicking. There has been little to no valid criticism of her video series that hasn't been steeped in vile personal attacks on her or used as a weapon against her". So, I say I mostly agree with her, but disagree with some of her examples, and he responds that any criticism of her is illegitimate. Blacke (talk) 11:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you get that impression from. He only notes the tendency of criticisms to be steeped in personal attacks. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 11:11, 30 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

If you think I am interpreting him wrong, maybe he should explain his own position in more detail? Does he believe that respectful and legitimate criticism of the work of Anita Sarkeesian is possible? Blacke (talk) 11:15, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

WalkerWalkerWalker 11:31, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you should listen to some Jim Fucking Sterling, Son, because he covers it better than I ever could.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:59, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Anything new?

Sarkeesian's latest video has finally gotten the Thinderfoot treatment. Not watching the video so I don't mess up my YouTube recommendations (and because I just plain don't like his videos) but could someone who's seen it state if there's anything to use to add to this page.^{— Unsigned, by: 207.230.249.94 / talk / contribs}

Use the "private browsing" function of your browser?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 21:06, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

You can pause your YouTube watch history or remove videos from the history on https://www.youtube.com/feed/history.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I REALLY don't want to put myself through that sneering jackanape's pretentious bluster. I could barely take it when he sneered through Anita's thesis like he was somehow making a point. Could someone with more patience than me do it?^{— Unsigned, by: 136.159.49.122 / talk / contribs}

You want, that someone does your dirty work for you?! We ain't your personal army. Do it yourself or stay out of the kitchen, if you can't stand the heat (btw, I share your opinion about him. I can't stand some boring idiots in love with their own voice on Youtube or else where, no matter, whether their first name is Phil or Anita).--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 18:19, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I'll be getting to it. Just been hectic as hell over here in Zeroland. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 23:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Re: "So Stupid its Funny": He opens by making fun of the content warning? 'da fuck? The has nothing to say. He makes no commentary at all and its just a bunch of Family Guy clips interlaced with the Women as Reward video. Its like rapid fire quote mining and not understanding media vs. the real world.

Re: "What IF Anita Sarkessian was right about video games?" He opens it up with the insult "Gynethinker". I have no words for how insulting this is, except you might as well have said "vagthinker" for how blunt it is. (See also that Jordan Owen picture of Anita's head replaced with a cuttout of a uterus.) Otherwise, this whole video is predicated on the poor understanding of the argument of reinforcement of ideas as opposed to teaching them. He then goes on to compare a trophy as a reward rather than a trophy for getting a rewards by equating the two. Missing the point here. He then quotes a study of German exclusive origin. Whoops. Misrepresents Listen and Believe, again. Then he digs up a clip from what looks like seven years ago about some teleseminars that looks like it was filmed on a cell phone camera, but doesn't display any sort of relevancy. Actual quote: "She also talked at length about her vagina and how it had revealed her destiny." At first he was being misogynistic, now he's a complete pig. The video is one very long straw man argument. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 00:34, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Renaming the article

I'm thinking with the way this is going we may want to change the article name to something more encompassing like, "Criticism of Anita Sarkeesian". Also, since I'm here, do we want to take a stab at a different sub article like "Criticism of Feminism" or something? Collect all the nonsense so its available. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 09:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

ValKOed's edit

An edit from ValKOed: http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thunderf00t/Criticism_of_Tropes_vs._Women&diff=1598822&oldid=1598820

Scrutiny on the scrutiny, men and women are patrons in the club as well. The majority of men here are not stated to be background decoration, and tend to have even less interaction or line than the dancers, the dancers whom speak out against the abuses in the club and the hardships of dancing at a crime organized establishment. Stating "Who can we turn to... The police? They have their [inaudible] parties here..." Anita ignores the fact these women actually speak, and the true lie is that they are rewarded and not punished by murdering these two women, whereas the punishment for murdering these women is just as prevalent to their male counterparts through the game. Anita elected to white-wash this information. On the dancing lingerie model, there are also several instances in the game where easter egg men can be murdered in humiliating and "amusing" methods such as burning alive a man in a chicken mascot, or having a man run over in a desert with an icecream truck by shooting crows. The game equally has instances of "amusing" kill moments, which has been a running gag in the series since the beginning.

And an edit from 142.179.247.169, presumably the same person: http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Thunderf00t/Criticism_of_Tropes_vs._Women&curid=164317&diff=1598819&oldid=1574837:

However a counter point, media envisioning men as hulking muscle bound "patriarch's" have created a massive health epidemic where estimated in Canada have placed young male (11-18 years of age) use of Anabolic Steroids at 83,000 in a country of 30 million and also the overconsumption of protein in young males leading to an increase in early developmental pancreatic cancer. To state that large breasts, a genetically controlled marker which are typically only truly prevalent in fighting games (large breasts in First Person Shooters and several other genre's tend to break the animation skeleton or cause clipping issues) are something no more damaging to the psyche than the ideal male archetype. The societal pressure on young men to look a certain way has spurred HGH and Steroid use which far surpasses anything young women take to "alleviate" small breasts. It is also true that many female gamers with bodies that match the large breasts archetype of women feel assaulted as their body type is outright called unnatural, unacceptable, and "grossly overexaggerated." These types of comments are quotable throughout Tropes vs. Women and are disturbingly prevelant elsewhere forming a new type of body shaming considered healthy by Third Wave Feminism I would like to dub Breast Shaming.

Herr FuzzyKatzenPotato (talk/stalk) 23:30, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Source Used For Point #2

Is it note worthy to point out how WEAK of a study is being used in source note (?) number 6. Only 2,000 households were surveyed?^{— Unsigned, by: 98.179.205.36 / talk / contribs}

2000 households is fairly standard for polling in the United States. Why describe it as weak? FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 14:43, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

2000 households is more than enough for statistical significance. CorruptUser (talk) 18:42, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

2000 households is certainly enough for statistical significance - but the report doesn't actually support the statement "This is a rather narrow-minded understanding of the video gaming market, which by the way counts a healthy number of women (48% of the most frequent game purchasers)." That statistic is potentially misleading - the report says that 47% of gamers are women and 53% are men - but it also says that 42% of games are of the "puzzle, board game, game show, trivia, card games category". Given the subject matter of this rationalwiki article, I think it matters to point that out - ie to mention that the words "game" and "gamers" include a not insignificant number of (for example) crossword puzzle(r)s. I (for one) assumed the report would be talking ONLY about the adventure style games (which is why I checked the statistic - it didn't sound right to me). Of course, it may still be true that 47% of "adventure" gamers are women - but that isn't verified in this particular report. I would like to add that I'm merely drawing attention to a poor sourcing reference - and the case for or against any party would not (in my opinion) be altered whether the percentage was 1% or 99%.

Butts

thunderf00t can't seem to figure out the point of the critique of Catwoman is the hip sway that makes no sense when walking upright. The moves like a cat thing is also rather nonsense as cats don't have swaying hips. He also cannot seem to differentiate between created characters and actual people. The rest is a series of quote mines intercut with the Batman Forever's Honest Trailer. At one point in the video there is a very obvious jump cut to remove the wo in women. Then he goes on to superhero comic book characters and how skintight the suits are...wow this is a bad deflection. Overall poor quality video, as to be expected. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 04:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I have seen Sarkeesian's yesterday, but not Thunderf00t's. What I know, SHE can't distinguish between people and game characters, which is one of the more fundamental problems in her whole series. How can you even objectify game characters, who are objects in multiple senses? The Kantian ideas that are buried in there (via Dworkin and McKinnon) make no sense whatsoever. It would be however another comical chapter here when the article ends up mocking Thunderf00t for this thing, but continues to kick and scream when this criticism is brought up against Sarkeesian, who he references. It wouldn't surprise me, though. ~ Aneris ✻ 05:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

"How can you objectify game characters?" By not being able to identify with them and seeing them as sexual objects as opposed to characters. Also, what in hell is Kantian and who is McKinnon? What does Dworkin have to do with it? You're spinning up tons of threads with no argument. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 07:37, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm not really surprised, but I always wondered why people use terminology they barely understand. Why faux academese when you have some trivial idea in mind, or is this on purpose? You may start here. And Kantian means in the tradition of Immanuel Kant. Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin are Anita Sarkeesian's spiritual predecessors and were involved in what's called the feminist sex wars. The gist of their position was that sex work and erotic depictions of women were objectifying them, and therefore bad. They were on the authoritarian side (like the SJWs today) and opposed to the libertarian faction of feminists who stressed emancipation and self determination, and such things. Libertarian and authoritarian in this context don't mean conservative-authoritarian nor paleo-liberarian (i.e. this is not about left or right wing). Today these positions are sometimes known as sex-negative (Dworkin/McKinnon/Sarkeesian) and sex-positive feminism. The common SJW likes to be sex-positive, because that sounds more inclusive and nicer, but typically defends to the death Anita Sarkeesian. This is possible when you master the art of postmodernism. The clue why Sarkeesian et al embrace authoritarianism comes with some deeper understanding of the matter. ~ Aneris ✻ 16:07, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

You still haven't drawn the sex negative connection. But since your argument is laced with ad hommeniems of the "SJW Cult" I have no reason to engage any of this. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 23:52, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Sex negativity: I did, by pointing you to the feminist sex wars and to a scholary article on the concept of objectification. I mentioned SJWs, i.e. her fans and her ideology, but the only person who talks about an "SJW Cult" is you. Don't make it seem this was a quotation of mine. ~ Aneris ✻ 00:05, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I watched most of Sarkeesian's video, and I thought it made little sense. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 00:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

This video basically illustrates all of Anita Sarkeesian's work as cherrypicking: utter buttocks.

Sincerely, ~ Aneris ✻ 23:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

---

*Rubs temples* Yet again you conflate things Anita never were involve in with her. This has no place. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 01:00, 4 April 2016 (UTC)