Feminism/Gender equality

[BTGBullseye]

And yet it's still a LOT more than you are providing. If you think the last one disproves anything I was saying, you need to reread both my posts and the article.

[rairii]

To sum it up, "Gamergate" is a misogynist shitshow.

 

A bunch of fucking manchildren wanted an excuse to complain about the feminist movement, so they took a tiny fucking issue and blew it out of proportion. Shit, gaming journalism has been corrupt for years, why do people only start to care when a woman's genitals are involved?

[Binky The Rabbit]

why do people only start to care when a woman's genitals are involved?

 

Gonna need that on a banner.

[Descriptor]

Then I'll be happy to fill in the blanks: the MRA and masculinists jumped on this like wolves smelling blood and directed some truly despicable and copious amounts of hate towards both Anita and women and general (up to and including death threats against women in the video game industry and Anita). They have since tried covering up their actions by repeating the lie "it's about ethics in gaming journalism!".

 

To sum it up, "Gamergate" is a misogynist shitshow.

Accurate.

I'm gunna have to give a big "Ehhhhhh" on that one.

I've been to a lot of the Gamergate hotspots, and the vast majority of the conversations really are related to talking about unethical behavior in the games industry. And granted, a lot of other conversations are related to modern feminism, but it's still kept pretty civil. Most of the folks that identify with GG tend to have more of an egalitarian streak than anything and are largely just opposed to the more extremist forms of feminism that are actively hateful or regressive. Especially when it comes to promoting censorship in games.

 

And sure, there's no denying that it did get pretty rough when the whole thing got kicked off, but really, that's just the result of the internet being this huge nebulous thing where a handful of a-holes can really mess things up for everyone else. You're trying to treat a hashtag like it's the Borg, that everyone who uses it does so legitimately and represents everyone else who uses it. Jerks holding megaphones make things seem a lot worse than they are.

 

Also, as sad as it is, everyone who is remotely famous on the internet gets death threats. Remember how bad Joss Weadon had it a couple months back? It's shameful, but again, it's hardly representative of everyone. At the end of the day, no matter who piggybacks on the GG crazy train, the movement as a whole still raises some good points, and have actually uncovered a lot of corruption and unprofessional behavior in games media (the same games media, I might add, which helped spread the misogyny label). All I'm saying is, based on what I've seen, the whole "women hating" angle is a lot more of a farce than it may seem, at least from my own experiences.

 

To sum it up, "Gamergate" is a misogynist shitshow.

 

A bunch of fucking manchildren wanted an excuse to complain about the feminist movement, so they took a tiny fucking issue and blew it out of proportion. Shit, gaming journalism has been corrupt for years, why do people only start to care when a woman's genitals are involved?

 

Contrary to popular belief, a lot of what got the whole GG thing going wasn't just the whole Zoe Quinn affair. At first, it was just your usual relationship drama on the internet. It wasn't until people started to make connections between her game and the journalists who covered it (who were implicated at the time in the drama) that things started to get crazy. The biggest smoking gun was when a bunch of gaming journalist sites all published the (basically) same article, all on the same day, talking about how "gamers are dead" that lead to people finding out that a large number of gaming journalists were in cahoots that people really started to get sucked into it. The idea that the game's media were playing favorites with devs and were shaping things behind the scenes really didn't sit right with people.

So really, it wasn't just the Zoe Quinn thing that started this. It's like asking "Why did everyone freak out and start WW1 when some third-rate leader got shot?". The true motivations are a lot bigger than just the initial catalyst.

[Binky The Rabbit]

The true motivations are a lot bigger than just the initial catalyst.

 

Gonna need this on a banner too.

[BTGBullseye]

So, now, on to other aspects of this? How about equality in relationships instead of just the work environment?

[Collective Foal]

BTG you understand that women were tarred and feathered for wanting the right to vote. They went on hunger strikes and had tubes stuffed down their throats to force feed them. Women all over the world are oppressed and killed because they want an education. Baby girls are killed upon birth in China.

 

Your comment about Christianity not contributing to women's oppression is also completely false. Here are a few quotes to prove it to you:

 

Titus 2:4-5 says, "Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

 

Peter 3:1 says, “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands..."

 

I mean for fuck's sake dude, women aren't even allowed to officially preach the word of God.

 

Anyways, don't you think that in a system that has constantly been rigged against women, minorities, etc., we need to manually take control of the system and orient it the way it should be? Until this country isn't run by an overwhelming percentage of white men, you can't say that white men experience oppression. If you run the system you aren't oppressed. And you can say all you want that businesses have racial quotas and all that jazz, but that's almost always in low-level positions. You don't see blacks and women in executive positions. Why? Not because the employers are racist, but because they couldn't afford to go to college. They were too busy dropping out of school and working minimum wage to keep their families fed and in their section 8 housing.

 

So how do we fix this? We pay for them to go to school. We give them opportunities that they otherwise would NEVER receive. If we didn't have a racial quota, do you HONESTLY think workplaces would still be diverse considering the white male mind naturally devalues women and criminalizes blacks because of the society its been raised in?

 

Anyways, I don't have a conclusion here. Hell yes I'm a feminist, and I 100% believe that all people should be regarded equally and that we need to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

[Binky The Rabbit]

How about equality in relationships

 

Consent, compromise, sharing, support, encouragement.

 

If those things can't be adhered to, the relationship is probably in need of terminating.

[BTGBullseye]

BTG you understand that women were tarred and feathered for wanting the right to vote. They went on hunger strikes and had tubes stuffed down their throats to force feed them. Women all over the world are oppressed and killed because they want an education. Baby girls are killed upon birth in China.

1. Past is past. Don't overcompensate, or you're as bad as those who oppressed in the past.

2. I specified that my statements were aimed solely at the USA. I have never lived in or visited any other country, so have no experience with which to base any opinions. Have you been to these other countries, and have experience concerning this? Do you have proof that this is something happening regularly across the entire country, or is it yet another of those overhyped media sensation stories?

 

Not trying to discredit or insult, please never assume that it is intended that way. These are issues that should be discussed rationally, not emotionally. Emotional responses created the problem, and will only serve to aggravate it.

 

Your comment about Christianity not contributing to women's oppression is also completely false. Here are a few quotes to prove it to you:

 

Titus 2:4-5 says, "Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God."

 

Peter 3:1 says, “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands..."

 

I mean for fuck's sake dude, women aren't even allowed to officially preach the word of God.

Taking two verses out of context, and then also stating as fact a completely wrong assumption that is vaguely connected to a tradition, all to portray Christianity in general as anti-female... Learn the religion, then you might be able to say something that actually makes sense.

 

Anyways, don't you think that in a system that has constantly been rigged against women, minorities, etc., we need to manually take control of the system and orient it the way it should be?

No. It has already been corrected far beyond what it needs to be.

 

Until this country isn't run by an overwhelming percentage of white men, you can't say that white men experience oppression. If you run the system you aren't oppressed. And you can say all you want that businesses have racial quotas and all that jazz, but that's almost always in low-level positions. You don't see blacks and women in executive positions. Why? Not because the employers are racist, but because they couldn't afford to go to college. They were too busy dropping out of school and working minimum wage to keep their families fed and in their section 8 housing.

Ok, so using the same logic... China is run by Chinese people, so Chinese people can't be oppressed? Cuba is run by Cubans, so Cubans can't be oppressed? Russia is run by Russians, so Russians can't be oppressed? India is run by Indians, so Indians can't be oppressed? Logic is completely missing from this argument.

 

You're using the class argument as a race argument. Correlation ≠ causation. Just because a majority of the top earners are white males, does not mean that all white males are privileged.

 

So how do we fix this? We pay for them to go to school. We give them opportunities that they otherwise would NEVER receive. If we didn't have a racial quota, do you HONESTLY think workplaces would still be diverse considering the white male mind naturally devalues women and criminalizes blacks because of the society its been raised in?

And yet those programs have been in place for over 50 years in most cases, and hasn't affected much of anything. Also, those are some of the most racist and bigoted comments I've ever heard.

 

Anyways, I don't have a conclusion here. Hell yes I'm a feminist, and I 100% believe that all people should be regarded equally and that we need to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

You claim to be for equality, and yet advocate for discrimination against the majority. Either be for minority supremacy, or equality... They're mutually exclusive.

 

How about equality in relationships

 

Consent, compromise, sharing, support, encouragement.

 

If those things can't be adhered to, the relationship is probably in need of terminating.

Sounds like a good place to start.

[Binky The Rabbit]

Learn the religion, then you might be able to say something that actually makes sense.

 

This is why I tend to refrain from commenting on religious perspectives of debate. Like, insubstantial speculation is as far as I can really go. It's a separate can o' worms that I can't really weigh in upon.

 

Hashtag AgnosticLyf

[BTGBullseye]

Learn the religion, then you might be able to say something that actually makes sense.

 

This is why I tend to refrain from commenting on religious perspectives of debate. Like, insubstantial speculation is as far as I can really go. It's a separate can o' worms that I can't really weigh in upon.

 

Hashtag AgnosticLyf

At least you know that you don't know, that beats most.

[Collective Foal]

Why do I bother. You literally do nothing but ruin this forum. Nobody can make a thread without having you come in with some idiotic opinion that just pisses people off. You act like people shouldn't get emotional about things that affect them personally. That's impossible.

 

I really wish you would just leave. This forum would be such a happier place without you.

[BTGBullseye]

Why do I bother.

Only you can answer that.

 

You literally do nothing but ruin this forum.

You are entitled to your opinion.

 

Nobody can make a thread without having you come in with some idiotic opinion that just pisses people off.

If you don't want to hear opinions, why then make/read a thread on a public forum? This is what forums are for. That you allow it to piss you off is your problem, not mine. (and yes, it is that you allow it to)

 

You act like people shouldn't get emotional about things that affect them personally. That's impossible.

And yet I can do it much of the time... So can many others. I don't get emotional when I get a letter saying I didn't get a job, even though that affects my entire life significantly, I go try and get another job.

 

I really wish you would just leave.

Not likely to happen.

 

This forum would be such a happier place without you.

[Scorpia]

Get back on topic people.

[Binky The Rabbit]

I think one problem feminism tends to suffer from is a sense of lacking a distinct direction.

 

I'd say feminism's unpopularity or 'infamy' comes from people talking/yelling about how unfair society is to women in a manner that doesn't particularly help their case. That is, highlighting the problem but not actively offering a solution. The sometimes aggressive and accusatory nature of these...(I'm loathe to use this word here) rants generally have good points to them, but don't provide much to help the movement. Men and the Patriarchy can be criticised and demonised only so much before the criticism loses its impact and becomes tiresome. When this is coupled with the stereotype of women being perpetually unsatisfied and prone to complaining, this becomes counterproductive. People can then brush them off using the aforementioned stereotype among others, and this only further fuels the 'complaining' and resentment on both sides. It's probably about here that feminists can turn into 'feminazis' (also attainable through other methods, but that's for another post later), balls of hateful, anti-men rhetoric.

 

The way to get around this, is not to simply rage about the state of the gender divide, but to actively do something. Include ideas in the 'rants' about how to solve the issue at hand. (Don't be like the Vent thread in FFA ) It's a type of politics and human rights we're dealing with, so it should be treated in a similar fashion to other drives for rights. Don't rely solely on shock tactics, reassure people of the positive effects of feminism.

 

 

I've a few more things to say, but I'll get to them later.

[Collective Foal]

Feminism gets a bad rep because of extremists, just like any other group of people. There are feminists that act like men are the scourge of the earth and all deserve to die in a fiery abyss. They're the ones that people see because they're the noisiest.

 

But most feminism does have a direction. The way I look at myself as a feminist is that I support any major movement being made towards equality (i.e. protesting police brutality, especially against minorities, supporting the LGBTQ+ community, of which I am a part.) While I'm not a huge vocal advocate for equal rights, I do make myself heard when I see people thinking, speaking, acting in a shitty manner.

 

If someone says "she was asking for it" because a rape victim was wearing revealing clothing, I will go the fuck off on that person. If somebody says that Darren Wilson was defending his life, I will proceed to go through every ounce of evidence that shows he shot a young, black, innocent man in the back and then several more times as he fell to the ground.

 

And if somebody threatens violence simply because they don't like that people are happy the Supreme Court ruled in favor of legalizing gay marriage nationwide and in doing so validated and made happy again the lives of thousands of gay men and women who otherwise would be unable to marry their partner, then I will report their ass to the mods for being homophobic and threatening others.

 

The idea is telling other people that they're fucking wrong and showing them why so as to change their way of thinking to become more helpful and progressive. If you change their minds and hearts, then equality is quick to follow, because everybody will then be in favor of it.

 

That's what being a feminist means to me. While I understand that there are assholes who label themselves the same way as me and will ruin my own image and reputation, I'm more than willing to have that happen if it means I'm doing what's right and trying to make the world a better place.

[Del3030]

Late to the party due to not frequenting the forums as much as I should but I think I'll add my two cents to things.

 

Ok, you should be done by now. Can someone tell me why people hate Anita with such a burning passion? I understand she is a liar and a bitch by some peoples account, but even at the mere mention of her, more than 1/3rd of the like bar goes grey, even if the topic itself is somewhat unrelated to anything she said in the video itself. the main story is about revenge porn, something atrocious, and I think most people would say its bad. but 98% of the comment section isn't about that, they're about Anita and the brief picture of her. In fact, what the fuck is a gamergate anyways? call be naive, but I try not to poison my mind with this shit, but now my curiosity is peaked.

 

To be honest, I really don't understand GamerGate. Zoe Quinn released a game, certain people didn't like it, her ex boyfriend posted deets about their relationship, there was bias allegations on Kotaku, and everything after that is just a haze of stuff I can't be bothered reading up on. I think the Internet Hate Machine simply got caught out in its Hatin' for Hate's sake. Nothing can be done about it - there's always a section of the Internet that hates you with every inch of their being.

 

I have tried to avoid talking about GamerGate here as I felt that the topic had nothing to really do with much of Ross's work but as someone who is pro GamerGate I might be able to clear some things up.

 

I think hate is a bit of a strong word for what most people feel over Anita Sarkeesian but there is certainly no love for her in the video game industry. She goes around acting as a moral authority for video games while continuing to straight up lie about the subject. She has also faced all criticism of her work by declaring harassment and blocking anyone who calls her out on her hypocrisy. More often than not her arguments will devolve into the same arguments Jack Thompson made back in the 1990’s.

 

Here you can see her saying how much of a fan of video games she is when trying to raise money for her kickstarter and then a clip from a few years before that of her saying how much she hates video games.

 

FW-69xXD734

 

 

Here is another example of said hypocrisy.

 

 

 

She is also against violent video games much like Jack Thompson was.

 

 

 

She will also go on to claim peoples criticism as harassment or people trying amass an army of minions to harass her like below. (Mind you I only know the bottom two youtubers in the picture so the top two could harass her but given her track record I am doubtful.)

 

Bonus content, here are some of the youtubers in question 'harassing' her.

WuRSaLZidWI

mhFCdQjthxo

1eQW-NvtAEs

 

 

In the end this is how I imagine most people in GamerGate feel about her.

 

 

 

Has she received harassment? I am sure she has. You can't be a public figure without reviving harassment, it just comes with the job. But lets not act like it isn't the same stuff that people gave Thompson back in the day.

 

 

 

Now on to GamerGate. I always hate talking about Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, and Brianna Wu when talking about GamerGate as they have nothing to do with it and the movement as a whole tries to ignore them but they keep trying to stay relevant by claiming harassment. Anyway I think I will start with a brief history of the movement as it's been going on for about a year now and there is a lot to talk about.

 

It really started before the whole Zoe Post as it's come to be known. Video games 'journalism' has always been iffy and consumers have been getting fed up with it for years now. Most notably is the whole 'DoritosGate' thing. But one day Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend decided to (wrongfully) post proof (not only was what he posted conclusive but Zoe her self confirmed it at one point) that Zoe Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. (He would later go on claim it was enough to fill two greyhound buses but that they had no relevance to why he was making the 'Zoe Post' and I agree it is irrelevant.) These five guys happened to work within the gaming industry. Now one person a Nathan Grayson had written about Zoe Quinn in a positive light all the while never once disclosing he had any sort of relationship with her.

 

This wasn't the major issue. The major issue ended up being that when people tried to talk about the concept of nepotism between gaming press and developers for which there seems to be a ton of they where silenced from doing so on every major gaming website. So they tried to talking about it on /r/gaming of reddit and the same thing happened so people got desperate and went onto the video game board of 4chan known as /v/. Now despite the reputation 4chan has built up over the years it is easy to have a civilized conversation there as long as you can stand their adoption of slurs as terms of endearment. Well people talked about it a little bit but there wasn't much talk until a youtuber by the name of MundaneMatt decided to talk about Zoe Quinn's game in a less then positive light. Zoe Quinn's response was to file a false DMCA claim and have his video taken down. This sparked a youtuber who went by the name of Internet Aristocrat (who at this point was well known on 4chan for making fun of tumblr feminists) to make a video about it and other examples of corruption in the video gaming press.

 

Now talk blew up on /v/ and people started to dig into what else the press had been doing that was unseemly. Well a funny thing happened. The threads started disappearing as it turned out the mods on 4chan where also silencing discussion on the subject. The the owner of the website (who turns out was in a relationship with someone in the gaming press) said he was banning the topic as it wasn't something appropriate to be discussed on 4chan. So people found a new home on the reddit board /r/KotakuInAction and the 8chan board /gamergatehq/.

 

Now before the exodus from 4chan's /v/ a few things did happen. It turns out that Zoe Quinn and her friend Randi Harper had helped shut down a game jam (I think it was for 'sexism' or something but it's been over a year now so my memory is a little fuzzy) which is a contest to see who can make a game in a short amount of time and then award a prize to the winner. Zoe Quinn then made her own and I imagine is still taking donations for it though I could be wrong. (Fun fact the donation button for her game jam was the same for her personal donation paypal.) Now Zoe Quinn and Randi Harper had contacted the majority of the gaming press telling them not to cover a game jam by a group called The Fine Young Capitalists do to it being a sexist. Well turns out The Fine Young Capitalists is a group trying to get more women into comics and game design by by running contests in which all an applicant needs to do is submit an idea (with the ideas to be voted on by the public) and the winning idea would be made into a game. The only skill the person would need coming into this would be simply to have the best idea after that the team of The Fine Young Capitalists would help them make it from start to finish. The catch being that these contests where to be crowd funded and with no media attention there would be no crowd to fund it. Well GamerGate decided as a whole to give it the push it needed and funded most of it. Now for a bit of speculation on my part but a fair number of people including myself believe that the reason Zoe Quinn stopped press coverage and doxxed this group was to prevent people from donating to this game jam for women is so that people wishing to donate to a cause would only find her's and donate to the gamejam that is linked to her donation paypal. Why bring up all of this? Well this is where any relation to Zoe Quinn ends for GamerGate despite claims that say otherwise.

 

 

 

The only other thing of note that really happened before the exodus was that Adam Baldwin of Firefly/Full Metal Jacket fame coined the term GamerGate on Twitter starting the hashtag. Now withing the first few months of GamerGate it was mostly figuring out what the consumer revolts main goals where and going about them in a rational way. Truth is no one expected GamerGate to last this long. So the goals where laid down and they are as following. All gaming news websites should have a ethics policy similar to that of the Society of Professional Journalists in which there is full disclosure of any relationships journalist have with who they are covering or better yet having them recuse themselves from writing the article. Further to go back and update all prior articles that didn't bother with such things.

 

The gaming press of course responded to this request in a reasonable manner by declaring all gamers dead. They also helped spread some other stuff around that would lead the the plot for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit : Intimidation Game. (Warning: Language)

 

 

 

Other factions in GamerGate is an anti harassment group that goes around twitter looking for people harassing under the GamerGate hashtag and reporting them. There is also a group who feels the need to identify as #NotYourShield do to GamerGate being called out as a bunch of white men in which they show their support for GamerGate and declare that they are not the shield of the press to hide behind see:

 

tzwGIHUCtjU

 

 

Now there is just far to much to get into as it's been going on for over a year and I only posted a small fraction of the mess that has been GamerGate. I have left many things out but this is already long enough. I can post more if people want but I have doubt it is of much interest. Now there is a lot here to read and I don't expect you to read it all, click on every link, and watch every video. Still if you would be willing to listen to both sides of the debate and make up your own mind based on what they have to say. Also if you only click on one link, then consider this one which is all of the evidence we have found of journalists corruption. Also this video is a good summary if you don't mind snark and the annoyance of someone having to deal with this for months.

 

2LgQ7asq_MI

 

 

I will close on saying that GamerGate is a hashtag consumer revolt and it's nature lets anyone post with it. So don't judge on the actions of a few trolls but rather how GamerGate reacts to it (Warning: Also Language)

and it's overall actions. There really is two stories painted here. The first being that this is a group of about 300 white dudes who hate women keeping at for months on end as being reported by the gaming press. Or it's a group of gamers who are sick of being thrown in the mud by a press wanting to make money off of them without doing any real journalism instead calling them trash and hiding behind three women who have nothing to do with the topic at hand but do make money from claiming harassment. Perhaps this explains why people are so defensive when a small clip of Anita is used to show an example of harassment.

 

sidenote, what is your consensus on revenge porn? I think most sites should ban it, but I don't know how I feel on the government lurking over it

 

 

I think anyone who posts revenge porn is an asshole who deserves to get their shit kicked in. Websites would do well to ban it but you can't stop every website from doing so. I agree that governments would probably abuse any law they use to prevent it.

 

[Binky The Rabbit]

Great post Del3030. I'll check out the videos when I have more time

[Collective Foal]

My opinion is Gamergate was stupid and I never fully understood it or cared enough to understand it. I play video games and I like people. That's about as far as I go.

[Del3030]

Great post Del3030. I'll check out the videos when I have more time

 

Aw, your making me blush.

 

My opinion is Gamergate was stupid and I never fully understood it or cared enough to understand it. I play video games and I like people. That's about as far as I go.

 

That's fair. Most people in GamerGate just wanted to play games. I wouldn't ask you to side with it as there it nothing wrong with not being bothered with it. The only thing that bugs me is when people try to slander it.