Ally Fogg weighs in on the Anita Sarkeesian controversy.
Originally published at Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men
I am not the most dedicated gamer of my generation. I never owned a Pong machine or a Gameboy, a ZX Spectrum or a SNES. I’ve never played Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider or Final Fantasy. My only engagement with an XBox is the occasional attempt to prise my 10 year old son away from Minecraft, an experience roughly akin to dragging a hippie raver out of a K-hole. The closest I’ve come to pixellated sexual violence against women has been blasting a red shell up Princess Peach’s exhaust pipe on Mario Kart.
So I don’t have much in the way of informed opinions about misogyny in video games, I’ll leave that to others. Nonetheless I couldn’t help but be sucked in by the debate surrounding Kickstarter Anita Sarkeesian, as good an illustration as we’ll ever need of the vitriol of the new gender wars. An intense storm of hatred was roused by her modest idea to crowd-fund research into sexism in the games industry. The many thousands of hostile comments posted on Sarkeesian’s YouTube video were of course heavily gendered and sexualised, but so too was some of the retaliation – notably Charlie Brooker’s description of the mob as “idiotic pebbledicks” who are terrified of women.
If one of the worst offences committed by sexists and anti-feminists online is to reduce women and their opinions to their genitalia and sexual worth, I’m not sure how the cause is helped by turning the precise same missiles around and hurling them back in the other direction – however deserving of mockery and disgust the targets might be. Without doubt, the hate-fest directed at Sarkeesian was repellent and indefensible. It was a display of the madness of crowds which would have come as no surprise to Mackay or Le Bon (Gustave, that is, not Simon.) There were a few sane voices raised in defence of the gaming culture, and a few reasonable points made about creative freedom and the demands of the free market. But such comments were few and far between, and lost in a swamp of ugly abuse.
In all the online articles and commentary that appeared, a point recurred that this phenomenon is an inevitable price of freedom. If we grant free expression, we also grant freedom to abuse, insult and offend. It’s a seductive argument, with a lot of merit. Offence is indeed in the eye of the beholder, and there has never been an opinion of value which didn’t cause offence to someone. But just as my right to swing my fist ends where it meets your right to not be punched in the face, so my right to freedom of speech does not extend to the point where it silences others.
Let there be no doubt, the hate campaign waged against Anita Sarkeesian was a concerted attempt to silence her voice, using intimidation and psychological warfare. The misogyny expressed may have been rooted deep in the personalities of her antagonists, but in most cases I doubt it. Instead I suspect it was instrumental, using vocabulary consciously chosen to wound as deeply as possible, and aimed at the (assumed) weak points of a woman and a feminist.
This boot can sometimes be on the other foot. While there is no direct symmetry, we have seen the same principle at play in the concerted attempts of some feminists (mostly, but not entirely historic) to stifle debate about male victims and female perpetrators of domestic violence, with activists, writers and academics being branded misogynists and abusers for even raising the issues. Anyone who dares to raise a sceptical voice in many feminist blog spaces can expect more aggression and abuse than reasoned debate. The urge to silence opponents is probably a human one, and for that reason it is all the more important we are conscious of it in ourselves and wary of it in others.
Those who participate in online hate campaigns are not the champions of freedom of speech, but its worst enemies. If they consider themselves libertarians, they are a disgrace to the label. It is not easy to see the solution. Censorship is never the answer, far too many babies go out with the filthy bathwater. Nor do I want to see our prisons filled with hot-headed flamers and trolls.
All we can do is be wise to the nature of these online flame wars, and be prepared to challenge abusive, insulting, silencing behaviour wherever it emerges; be prepared to confront bullies and mob mentality wherever they arise.
We can do that by questioning what they pack in their politics, not what they pack in their pants.
Photo—Angry young man from Shutterstock
The man vs woman and vice versa and hate vs love is a great tragedy. Its a heavy burden on the back of humanity. Turning back to God (not religion) but scriptures in the (NKJV study) bible, to learn what love means is in John 1. This is the way to get a fresh start, away from the worlds template of what a man or woman should or should not be. Turning back to God allows you to cut through all the crap the world regurgitates at your feet. Opens your eyes to deception on a whole different level. Don’t… Read more »
Feminists will typically block dissenters/silence non-feminists by deleting their comments. Feminism is, at its heart, a totalitarian ideology. Believe in the pay gap myth or be bannes. By contrast, I do not know a single MRA who blocks people or deletes comments. It makes you wonder what the feminists will do once they have taken over every echelon of government in western society. Democracy and freedom of exppression have already suffered a great deal. We are close to losing the last few freedoms we’ve got.
I would really like to ask the men in theis blog to read” Mysogyny and the straw feminst” under the blog site” A Series Of Random Tangents”, by Anna Johnstome. It shows feminst verbally beating the shit out of this man on the blog that asked one question , what rights are American women lacking, its pretty shocking.
Really? You think that’s shocking? She unfriended him on Facebook and called him a dick, and then wrote a very long and tedious blogpost about their tedious Facebook spat? And that’s it? You think that is shocking? I’ve had more malicious hatchet jobs against me on a good day.
I hate to think what you’d think of this
Oh, I’ve just noticed your name. I guess it was you she called a dick? Well I can see why you’re upset, but word to the wise:
1. Feminist posts something feminist on her blog or FB Page
2. Someone else says “Fuck I hate feminist with a passion”
3. Feminist says “piss off you dick”
That’s kind of how this works. Welcome to the internet, pal.
Late comment regard Wikipedia: Wikipedia has been mobbing-for-sport ever since it’s inception. Changes are defended by ruthless gangs who seem to be made up of men, and their target is usually a loan woman who challenged their not-so-neutral POV. When mods are called in, they are usually no help because the gangs are engaging in obscure Wikipedia procedures which will bring about what’ they want, while their target can’t figure out why the Wikipedia page was “frozen” after it looks like the gang wants it to look. Most people tend to give up on Wikipedia after a couple of experiences… Read more »
“Hate speech” is always a losing argument with me. There’s no such thing as a right not to have your feelings hurt.
Theoretically, everyone should get to answer back. It doesn’t always happen. Maybe that’s a good thing; we’ve got enough people peeing in the pool of public discourse as it is.
Why do feminists hate free speech? Every single one of those entitled princesses on YouTube, who are obviously too accustomed to hearing praise and compliments all the time, will block you for asking the wrong questions. In most cases, it’s approval pending for comments and in most cases, the ‘wrong’ questions, no matter how politely you ask them, will never be approved. To give you just one example, a couple of months ago, I simply pointed out to “TheFeministFrequency” that her use of the word “fallacy” in her “The Straw Feminist” video was wrong. She decided not publish it. In… Read more »
There is no such thing as hate speech. There is only free speech
Really?
Presumably you believe it is free speech to burn crosses in black households’ front yards? Or publish tracts calling for all gay people to be murdered? Or call for genocide on the airwaves?
Well, no. My front yard is my front yard. You cannot just put up a cross there without asking me. A comment thread is not a front yard. Not because the burning cross is hateful, but because I have invested money in cultivating that lawn and I am the one who is going to clean it up. A comment thread is very different. It exists precisely so people can express their opinions there. A front yard was not put there so the KKK can burn crosses there. The YouTube aoftware gives its users the option of curbing free speech to… Read more »
Well, whether it is your yard or not is not really the point here. If you want to be like that, suppose it is the common land in the middle of an African-American neighborhood, is it acceptable use of freedom of speech to be burning crosses there? In the broader argument, I’d ask you to consider this. Suppose the internet is a ‘speakers corner’ type area, where anyone can get up on a soapbox and speak their mind, however right or wrong, sane or crazy he or she may be. If one person stands up to make a point to… Read more »
Well, let’s not mix too many apples and oranges here. A person who is obviously out to limit your freedom of expression by shouting you down obviously infringes upon your right to express yourself. However the horde of trolls that posted on TheFeministFrequency’s channel did not shout her down. They were not able to. The video was still up and every single word of her excruciatingly monotonous pitch was still clearly audible. The very few miscreants that tried to flag her video down could have done so even if Anita Sarkeesian was in favour of free speech. The option to… Read more »
Check out my site Support Rights For Men .
http://youtu.be/-JrF1l_BYPc
I do believe women should hve rights but till my dying breath I will never believe that the female species is superior to males or man. Many cultures have proven this to be so from before Egypt to indians we see that male has always played a dominant role in society. I am not a muslim but even Muslims have fought against Feminism because look at what it is doing to our men and their ability to work . I feel its a great thing to provide great wages for all people and equal access to housing for our men… Read more »
Just a heads up.
Word through the grapevine at many 4chan boards (the supposed attackers) is that this whole thing was manufactured to get publicity and sympathy. A number of users have been poking around (via legal and less than legal means) to get to the bottom of it, and came up with some interesting info.
All I know is, I didn’t know about this whole thing until kotaku broke the story. I read 4chan daily in my downtime, and even I didn’t know about this until the media spoke up on it. Kinda makes you wonder…
The only reason why this is garnering so much backlash is because so much energy, concern, money, and time is spent unearthing even the slightest unflattering, less-than-ideal representation of women, while even the most egregiously sexist portrayals of men are left unquestioned by those in power.
Men are simply fed up with it and since they can do nothing about it, respond with rage.
Ironically, the project itself is arguably an example. From what I know of it, Anita has no plans to examine sexism as it relates to men. She has no responsibility to, of course, but I don’t logically see how someone can call a trope sexist unless they know how it affects the other gender.
…but I don’t logically see how someone can call a trope sexist unless they know how it affects the other gender.
I think it’s entirely possible to see if something is sexist toward one gender without knowing how it affects the other. That’s how you end up with situations where you can take one topic and see how it’s sexist against one gender but not the other or even both.
All we can do is be wise to the nature of these online flame wars, and be prepared to challenge abusive, insulting, silencing behaviour wherever it emerges; be prepared to confront bullies and mob mentality wherever they arise.
I dig.
This isn’t as black and white as you make it out to be. It isn’t just this scientists speech we need to be concerned about, but also the speech of the gamers. Don’t you think that the hostility toward this was caused, at least in part, by the impression that this study was meant to chill their speech? To shame them by shining a critical light on their speech? To prevent them, in some way or another, from using the words and phrases they’ve always used? Sarkeesian is probably doing this in attempt to silence them, just as they want… Read more »
No, I’m sorry Soullite but I’m not buying that for a moment. Don’t you think that the hostility toward this was caused, at least in part, by the impression that this study was meant to chill their speech? No, I don’t. Unless by the phrase “chill their speech” you mean that she wanted to persuade gamers away from rank sexism and violent misogyny. In which case they can take a running jump, because freedom of speech does not entitle someone to indulge in hate speech and abuse and more than freedom of movement entitles someone to climb through a neighbour’s… Read more »
Unless by the phrase “chill their speech” you mean that she wanted to persuade gamers away from rank sexism and violent misogyny. Sarkeesian does not appear to be trying to persuade anyone as much as she is playing to an existing audience of feminists who already agree with her. It is more likely that the games she will “research” will probably be those poo-pooed by feminists. That is not remotely close to objective analysis, and that is worsened by her statements in the video in which she says she is looking for specific tropes. In other words, she will ignore… Read more »
Hi Jacob Sarkeesian does not appear to be trying to persuade anyone as much as she is playing to an existing audience of feminists who already agree with her. It is more likely that the games she will “research” will probably be those poo-pooed by feminists. That is not remotely close to objective analysis, and that is worsened by her statements in the video in which she says she is looking for specific tropes. In other words, she will ignore anything that does not fit her argument, which is consistent with her analysis of other pop culture things. Even if… Read more »
” Politics does not work by shouting down contrary opinions and intimidating opponents into silence.”
Perhaps it shouldn’t but the feminist movement has done precisely that for decades, very successfully.
Here’s a classic example from a men’s domestic violence discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qodygTkTUYM
Even if that is true (I have no opinion either way) it doesn’t excuse or justify the reaction. I never said it did. I think it is fine for people to object to her project , but I do not agree with attacking people, threatening them, or using vile language. People can critique her without being nasty. Politics does not work by shouting down contrary opinions and intimidating opponents into silence. In theory, I would agree. However, in practice politics is very much about shutting down and intimidating opponents into silence. Let us not deceive ourselves. Sarkeesian’s project will not… Read more »
“Let us not deceive ourselves. Sarkeesian’s project will not be used to talk with non-feminist male gamers. It will be used by feminists to shut down any male gamers trying to defend their community.” I think everything else you say is reasonable Jacob, but I just don’t see this. What’s the worst that could possibly happen? Maybe Sarkeesian is strongly pro-censorship and a radical extremist in terms of what she sees as unacceptable misogyny and sexism, I don’t know. But even if she is, it is a long way from putting together a polemical argument or a few propaganda films… Read more »
Ally, It is not true that feminism has not been successful. The movement has been extraordinarily effective in many of its endeavors. For example, decades ago, it achieved equal legal rights for women. A very good thing. The movement has successfully made domestic violence synonymous with violence against women, making violence against women a crime (as it should be) but violence against men a joke. The movement has successfully made the term “sexism” synonymous with discrimination against women. So it doesn’t matter what the inequality is, it can’t be considered discrimination because a male is the victim. Feminist efforts led… Read more »
A balanced view Ally. I don’t get to use the word hegemony much….ha!
The cultural hegemony “was and is” on the side of Anita Sarkeesian in this episode, so let’s not lose sight of that little fact. She has the full support of the powerful, the money, and the media channels that matter. Your characterization of “silencing and intimidation” is off base, but I agree with the rest of your level headed approach.
You’re right that it panned out that way. As it turned out, the attempts to silence and intimidate were not only ineffective, they were massively counter-productive. But that was after the fact. I’m sure the people making most of the comments on the YouTube site didn’t expect to become part of an international media hullaballoo, they just weighed in. And I’m sure when the comments first started appearing, Sarkeesian had no idea what degree of support she was going to end up receiving. She could quite easily have just gone away to cry in a quiet corner somewhere. I know… Read more »
Maybe so. I think it was a predictable pan out. The YouTube 4 Chan gangs live mostly in the Matrix, never say never to be sure, but they had no real chance against the BLOGS!! A comparable worthy challenger would need to be a CockZilla of some sort. The current viral story of the poor bus monitor being terribly harassed in meat-space – she now has near half a million in donations from the Internet public, the guilty boys are receiving death threats from the Internet, Disney wants to put her up at their Presidential Suite in some wonder-park, and… Read more »
Great Article! I echo all of the other comments.
“My only engagement with an XBox is the occasional attempt to prise my 10 year old son away from Minecraft, an experience roughly akin to dragging a hippie raver out of a K-hole.” <- This is freaking hilarious.
Thanks for the comments everyone. It’s nice to be here.
@HeatherN – My love for His Brookership is second to none, and I agree with your point, I’d forgive him almost anything. But that equation of misogyny & anti-feminism = small dick is pretty tiresome wherever it arises, even from him.
Oh I’ll agree it’s certainly a tired joke.
For me, it’s more than a tired joke- its pretty wounding.
if the reports of death threats, rape, and other abuses are true, that’s horrific. Fortunately and unfortunately, such speech can be made anonymously on the Internet. However, the backlash against that seems to have been equally strong. The only way to deal with a bully is to punch him/her in the nose (figuratively). Bullies are often cowards and unwilling to fight fair. They want to pick on those they percieve to be weaker than themselves.
On the other hand, the feminist movement has on many occassions sponsored gender-based hate-speech. It gets really old after a while
Love the article…the only thing I gotta do is defend Brooker a bit, and only because it’s Brooker. He’s a comedian and he says offensive things about pretty much everyone (not like Frankie Boyle but along the same lines). I mean in that article you mention, just look at his description of feminists playing Ms. Pac-Man…it’s meant to be outrageous.
But other then that, spot on.
Charlie paints with a broad, sloppy brush, but aside from that he reminds me there is hope for intelligent popular culture. At least in Britain. Not even on American public tv would you be allowed to critique consumerism and marketing in that rapier direct and funny way.
Hmmm. Still trying to figure out how one can be so direct yet paint with a broad brush.
I better go re-watch a few epps of Screenwipe and see.
Thank you!
Finally a sane piece on this issue.
I also loved the Duran Duran reference and the Holmes quote. I hope to read something else from you soon.
Just awesome.