Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
I think the reaction of many gamers to her is pretty appalling and shows a lack of maturity and immense entitlement.
I personally think she makes mostly good points, too.
And in a similar way to how I was happy that Double Fine overshot its asked goal on kickstarter, I am also happy for her to have gotten this amount of support.
I agree that gaming could use some more strong female roles like Jodie from Beyond: Two Souls and Laura from Tomb Raider. It would be incredibly intersting to see where they go with a different perspective. But this chick comes off like "how dare they not make a game with a woman. Those sexist chauvinist pigs. Grrrrr they should make one because I said so and I'm mad because they didn't do exactly what I want." She's got a good message, she just delivers it wrong and comes off like something of a b1tch.
Her attitude leaves a lot to be desired, imo. Not that it excuses the responses she was getting, though; those were pretty harsh.
I mean, some of the comments she posted as being attacking her, were pretty reasonable statements imo, so it's a case of her doing nothing to help her own cause, and then getting bent out of shape because she brought attacks on herself.
Her mention of male privilege makes me instantly hate her, though. I can't stand that elitist, sexist attitude.
Agreed. A lot of those responses are Internet sh1t talkers who can say anything behind a keyboard and will attack anyone. But she doesn't make me sympathize with her from her own attitude
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
It's hardly sexist. Especially in gaming men are immensely privileged over women, and catered to almost exclusively.
I don't think that is due to what she says though, rather it's you ascribing these stereotypes to her. Tbh she seems nothing but reasonable to me in her videos.
I think it is rather a case of feminism and the language of feminism having been thoroughly demonized and there being knee jerk reactions opposed to it almost immediately. For example the privilege thing, that's hardly a sexist point, it just point out where one group has advantages due to their status as a group. Same with patriarchy, we live in a patriarchal society, almost all our leaders are men, that's just a fact. I have seen this argument that she says things like "how dare they not make a game with a woman. Those sexist chauvinist pigs", but as far as I can tell that's never actually the case. She seems to be very aware that it is not outright conscious sexism, but rather game makers lazily relying on the standard tropes and upholding the status quo, mostly not even consciously.
For example, the problem of the damsel in distress trope is not that it happens once or twice, but that it is basically one of the very few archetypes of women in games, completely devoid of any agency (and no, after being rescued getting to punch your kidnapper does not make it fine).
The problem aren't single instances, it's a prevalence in the industry. It's not that one executive says "Hey, how about we make the female character nothing but a 2 dimensional love interest that gets stolen from our main protagonist and will serve as the macguffin for our game, that way we don't have to think about a personality for her either, win-win" (obviously that's not actually how it happens, it's just the result, no one actively says that, but it's still what we get). The problem is that every second game with a woman decides to go that way.
Sexist attitudes almost ensure that any woman speaking out about this will be viewed as a man hating, biased and obnoxious, while a man saying the same thing would be taken seriously and perhaps even lauded.
She 'brought attacks on herself'? What, because she had an opinion? She didn't bring shit on herself. Nothing justifies the response she got.
Do you deny though that males are heavily favored in gaming? Most of the comments she posted really do reek of male entitlement. How is it sexist to point out a discrepancy in the market? It isn't.
Kindly check your privilege in the future.
Jim doesn't get nearly the same amount of hate when he discusses similar topics to do with women in games.
(p.s. Bardocks post rocks)
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Last edited by Nephthys on Jun 16th, 2013 at 12:52 PM
Whilst obviously there is little chance that a person will agree with every point she makes (as is the case with just about every commentator and critic), there is a great importance, I feel, that a voice like this is loudly heard in the gaming community, as I do feel that community needs to change. Indeed, much of the criticism against her is mindless. Even just by exposing the kind of comments she gets, she is revealing something very significant.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
thanks a bunch from me serious.(please log in to view the image)(please log in to view the image)(please log in to view the image) (please log in to view the image) (please log in to view the image) (please log in to view the image) (please log in to view the image) (please log in to view the image)
...not a single comment she posted in the responses she got were reasonable. And no, she and others who call out the blatant and ingrained sexism in society are not bringing it on themselves. Holy crap.
There are deeply problematic issues present in the gaming industry, and the only way it will change is if it gets called out and questioned and clearly presented just how bad it is. Like how the assumption is that games with a female lead won't sell - yet those games are given 40% of the marketing budget games with male leads get. Gee, that could have nothing to do with it.
Also, not sugar-coating the truth is not having a bad attitude. Her attitude is perfectly fine. I doubt anyone would accuse Jim Sterling of having a poor attitude and he is far more coarse about, well, everything. But if you say Anita has an attitude problem, that says far more about yourself than anything else.
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
I wonder why these sorts of events only become issues when a woman is the victim.
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
There's also a lot of outrage about representation of other ethnicities or races (than white, european, western...(though I didn't have to mention that cause white european western is the default (cause racism and colonialism))). As well as sexual orientation and gender identity. Really all minorities (even if not minorities on a global level) are underrepresented or represented in terrible ways in gaming.
Obviously Anita's focus is female representation. Which I guess is fair, since she's female. Additionally women are a very, very large part of gamers, so it makes sense there's a lot of them speaking out.
Black people are significantly less represented in gaming than chicks are.
If I made a thread complaining about people in the gaming community calling me a **** or a ***, do you think it would get much attention?
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Absolutely no reason why it shouldn't on a broad basis.
But on a specific basis, it's less of a social problem simply because gamers tend to have no idea of the race of people they are playing with.
It's not very relevant though- the fact other problems may exist does not detract from the legitimacy of this problem. It should be judged on its own merits, and it is big enough to warrant attention.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
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Jun 16th, 2013 02:13 AM
