[OCR02670 - Legend of Zelda "I Do It for the Faeries"]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

Also, @Dave: While what you said was accurate and entirely correct, the way you said it could be misconstrued as too blunt and direct. Just a few examples:

Guilty as charged, most likely. I tend to be harder on those I perceive as arguing on the side of causes I actually AGREE with, at least in overall sentiment.

Dave's point throughout this thread has been that there isn't enough scientific evidence to support some of the assertions that have been thrown around regarding games, sexism, etc etc. My point was that even in medicine, which is driven by scientific data, we often try things that haven't been 100% completely and thoroughly studied, or that we don't even fully understand, because the REWARD is worthwhile.

Sure, medicine was a bad example, but I understood the argument just fine.

I've been making several points throughout this thread, and that is certainly ONE of them.

I've also been saying, however, that even if there were 110% scientific proof that certain types of content in art led to measurable increases in certain types of negative real-world outcomes, would that really be the end of the conversation? This is why I was asking why you were focusing on women, and violence against women, and not just violence, plain and simple... there's MORE data to suggest that violence is the more problematic component, and that even male-on-male (or perhaps even male-on-robot, or dinosaur-on-zombie, who knows) violence contributes to violence towards women.

So it's not JUST a question of evidence proving a correlation, it's where you want to start, what you want to achieve, and how you want to prioritize things. To cherry pick stuff you personally find offensive, when it might very well be the case that other types of content is actually more detrimental, is simply the exertion of personal bias, and not much more. Also, you DO really need to factor in the agency & freedom of the artist. It's reasonable to suggest that long-term exposure to films that feature a very dominant RED color palette is more likely to result in violence than films that feature a very dominant BLUE color palette. If you perform studies, what level of evidence and what degree of harmful effect would make you comfortable with advising the reduction of red colors to filmmakers?

I'm not saying that depictions of violence are the same as primary colors, but there are at least two possible beneficial things about them: in terms of some of the very same depictions of violence towards women that Anita singles out, I strongly feel that the viewer is meant to be shocked and angered. It's the exact opposite of trivialization and desensitization, really. The other role they MIGHT play is that of outlet; this is just a theory, but it hasn't been studied significantly and thus when you ask what the potential downside is, it should be considered. What if violent art, including violent games, is actually serving as an outlet for violent people who might otherwise be directing their pent-up anger towards real-world targets? Plausible? I don't even know... as far as I know, it hasn't been studied, as you would need a control group that was already more aggressive than normal, and you would need to study long-term, real-world outcomes. I suppose that a third possibility might be as follows... if you completely removed instances of brutal violence against women, there's the possibility that some people may actually be LESS aware that it actually occurs, i.e. that men are actually capable of it. Again, not sure if that's been studied, and you'd need a lot of time and some fairly naive test subjects. In other words, you might run the risk, by sanitizing the art, of not reducing the behavior itself, but simply the awareness that it is both real and plausible.

I mention these possibilities not as absolutes, but only as counterpoint, because I don't feel like you've even considered them. What I've mostly been criticizing in this thread is your willingness to jump over giant chasms of reasoning and causation and arrive so confidently at results. That includes not only the presence or absence of scientific evidence, but also the implications of its application...

The tie-in with my original point was that I think there is *enough* evidence to support a very low-risk proposition like "developers could try developing games with less senseless sexual violence and brutality against women", or "gamers could try not supporting such games". The risk is very low - at worst, nothing happens, but nobody gets hurt. The reward is potentially great, because if games really have contributed to negative attitudes over the long-term, then perhaps the trend will reverse to some degree.

What is "senseless" sexual violence, though? I assume you're using the adjective to allow for narrative contexts in which it is completely acceptable and non-gratuitous? That's a pretty fuzzy standard, and I'm afraid as a developer I might be legitimately confused. And why do you keep repeatedly scoping it to just women? The very studies that YOU quoted mentioned that violence in general was the more important ingredient than women OR sex. My suspicion is that you KNOW that not only does violence sell, but that it is integral to the mechanics of many genres of games, and so - pardon the expression - you don't have the cajones to go all-out and suggest its reduction, but you feel perfectly comfortable suggesting that it be reduced if it is 1. "senseless" and 2. directed at women.

At any rate, I was never saying that you can't or even that you shouldn't express your concerns to game developers. It is absolutely the role of the audience to request variety & change from artists and entertainers, and provide them with feedback. I prefer the word "request" to the word "demand" that Jay used, because I feel like artists can and should keep doin' what they're doin' if they disagree. My personal feedback is that I'd like to see characters, male and female, with more depth & dimension, and that certain tropes that Anita successfully identifies are overused, and I'd like to see more variety. If you want me to agree to anything MORE than that, you've completely failed to persuade me, but it doesn't at all mean you can't express your opinion & try to persuade others.

[OCR02669 - Final Fantasy XII "The Drum of Basswall"]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

Yeah, our conversation probably HAS run its course, because you keep saying the same things over and over while not responding directly to what I'm saying. Your "frameworks of privilege" are NOT carte blanche to draw causal links between art and behavior with scant or conflicting evidence, do NOT exempt you from supporting your statements, are NOT free from bias themselves, should NOT be articulated with a brand of certitude that I can only describe as blindly devotional, and do NOT seem to be tempered with any degree of skepticism, or even a basic pluralism.

You keep articulating theory and framework as fact, as if the mere description of their mechanics was somehow persuasive proof of their accuracy & truth.

e.g.:

it is important to recognize, though, that the immediate, short-term benefits caused by a system dependent on inequality will inevitably amount to a long-term loss.

Making statements about "inevitabilities" like this is almost comical in its hubris & unqualified, unscoped reach. "It is important to recognize" is not "it is possible" or even "I believe that" or "Historical patterns suggest" - it's just a flat-out statement that this is a unilateral, "self-evident", & unquestionable fact. It fails to define inequality, benefit, system, long-term, or loss to extents necessary to really hold together as a meaningful claim, and even if it spelled out each of those in very concrete terms, that would only make the categorical certitude all the more obvious. Do I think inequality, as it describes the treatment of human beings in various categories & contexts, is bad? Yes. Do I think we should strive for equality? Yes. Do I think there is merit in analyzing the patterns of society & culture that tend to reinforce inequalities, in trying to understand them better, and in applying that knowledge responsibly? Yes. Do I think I think we need to paint with strokes this absurdly broad, in language this laughably confident, to persuade others to feel the same way? No.

This is pseudo-reasoning; could almost mistake it for a Sokal hoax if I didn't know better.

I find it frightening & frustrating because, while I agree with you in principle on a great many of these topics, this type of adherence is not a huge improvement over the similarly unquestioning bigotry it seeks to expose.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

Regarding second vs. third-wave... I'm not an expert, I've never taken any classes on the subject, and I was only vaguely familiar with the terms until this thread. But I did take history classes, and I seem to remember a lot of the significant victories for women coming out of the 60s, which evidently was when the second-wave movement started. Things like the equal pay act of 1963, more acceptance for women in 'serious' fields (or working at all, vs. being stay-at-home mothers), the civil rights act, Roe v. Wade, etc. All of that, according to Wikipedia, falls under "second-wave feminism".

Second-wave feminism had some amazing accomplishments, absolutely. Like many "big things" ("men" and "women" for example!) it's difficult to talk about as a whole. A massive dent was made, and I'm afraid I may have seemed diminishing or trivializing in my referring to "second-wave" ideas as an entirety. A lot of it I quite simply agree with, 100%. The stuff that I object to is, quite happily, mostly the stuff that's been gravitated away from, and a lot of that same stuff is media criticism relating to pornography that overlaps with a lot of what you've been trying to say, as well as more extreme/unilateral forms of patriarchy theory as well. So, to be 100% clear, the portions of second-wave feminism that I object to are specifically the ones you've been employing, which are not at all representative of the entirety of second-wave theory or real-world accomplishments.

There are logical pitfalls in what you're articulating, many of which are transparent to the very audience you're trying to persuade, and the degree of certitude you've been wielding is simply inappropriate. It sounds like perhaps you've dialed it back a bit, which is great, but I still think that arguments that appeal to the increase of the positive are more effective than those that attempt to demonize - or more specifically, draw specious conclusions from - the "negative"... does that make sense?

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

i didnt post that clip of The House I Live In for nothing. i'll be specific: the part of that clip that was most significant to me, and informs pretty much everything that i have posted here, was when the lincoln historian (his name escapes me) says: "Now, it's important to remember - or to realize - that it isn't that the war on drug users is the same as what happened in other societies, but that both are wars on ordinary people - people who are just like us."

if there was ever a statement that i would subscribe to with the kind of "faith"-like fervency as you are implying, it would be that one. i believe that the kind of inequality and oppression that is being spoken of here has its origins in an inability on the part of one to recognize the equivalent humanity in another. everything else i've said here is simply evidence in service of that belief.

Clip is giving an error, but I'm gonna watch the whole thing as soon as I've got time.

However, I believe that a lot of what you've been saying resembles second-wave feminist gospel that DOES itself exhibit an inability to recognize the "equivalent humanity in another" - that's what I've been trying to point out. When you make isolated statements & quotes like the above, I can't help but agree with you 100%, because I strongly identify with the sentiment. The trouble arises when you start tossing around reductionist labels and applying (what I still perceive as outdated/outmoded & second-wave) feminist theory left and right. In seeking to address dehumanization & failures to recognize humanity, it ends up doing EXACTLY that, and this isn't a situation where fight-fire-with-fire makes ANY degree of sense. Quite specifically, and quite pointedly, the idea that only a "dominant" group can other or dehumanize is worthless. Even attempting to define "dominant" can be problematic; read some Paglia. It is a human practice, and addressing it requires human solutions, and this categorical way of thinking is counter-productive to such solutions.

You can slice humanity up in a hundred different ways and find a hundred different ways in which one group will irrationally assert its inherent superiority, regardless of its relative empowerment. If you find it mentally satisfying to deal in the sort of double-speak that only allows for hierarchies that fit your personal definitions of what's allowed on one specific plane, at one specific point in time, trending true across one set of statistics, at one level of scale, then so be it. I strongly disagree that this way of thinking is productive, and for what it's worth, as I keep saying over and over, third-wave feminism has largely moved on from irrationally categorical media criticism & absurdly extremist patriarchy theory and started focusing on pragmatic, real-world issues. And it's achieving real-world results, potentially thanks (in part) due to avoiding such nonsense. It resonates with a far larger & far more diverse audience because it appeals to our sense of what is fair, not who is what.

To summarize, oversimplification & reductionist theories aren't paths to understanding the equivalent humanity in all of us - which I completely agree is a fantastic goal.

I have to leave it at that, at least for now.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

So, think about it and be a nice person and sexism will go away? I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding you or we just have very different visions of the world, but I don't think that we can get rid of institutional sexism without a significant push to act on it, rather than just talk about it.

That's why third-wave feminism has focused on more actionable issues. With regard to media criticism, in answer to your above point - YES, absolutely, just talk about it & think about it!

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

sorry, i dont want to make something out of nothing here, and i apologize for misrepresenting you just then - but it seems a little...hypocritical for you to on the one hand continually criticize the "confidence" with which sarkeesian and others make their arguments, and then on the other quite confidently suggest that you have any real insight into the ways my opinions have been formed, without allowing for the possibility that i believe what i believe because it truly resonates with my own experiences.

It would be one thing for me to say that Freud's work "resonates" with my own experiences; it's another thing to re-articulate, with certitude, specific tenets of his work, with something resembling blind devotion. Sorry man, I'm calling it like I see it, and I'm entitled to my opinion, and my opinion is that you sound like you're applying feminist theory 101 unilaterally & unequivocally, without a lot of "value added"...

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

as an aside, i would like to post an excerpt from the documentary i referenced earlier, the house i live in. the film is specifically concerned with the drug war in the united states, and on a broader level the institutions which it upholds, including racism, capitalism, etc., but i hope that if you watch this excerpt you might get a clearer understanding of where im coming from in my posts about feminism and dehumanization. if nothing else, i hope this might do a little to assuage djp's concerns that i am simply lifting my posts from some other source directly.

http://youtu.be/Wdiz7E6biMM

I'll check it out, but I didn't express such a concern. Regurgitation is decidedly NOT the same as de facto plagiarism, and furthermore my concern isn't so much that you're repeating what you've been taught - there's nothing inherently wrong with that - but that you're not tempering it with any skepticism or competing/auxiliary frameworks. There's too much adherence, bordering on faith.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

nowhere in either of the posts you quoted do i say that or even suggest it. those posts do not rule out the ways in which women's actions enable - if unwittingly - those same dehumanizing processes, among other permutations. maybe you need to read my posts a little more carefully.

He IS reading your posts carefully. He quoted you:

"dehumanization is the process by which men come to comprise the oppressor-class and women come to comprise the oppressed-class"

This IS a definition of dehumanization that is extraordinarily poorly-worded. I'd be personally ashamed at having written it, if I had.

Rather than telling him to read more closely, you should really own that one. That you refuse to pretty much echoes my comments about Kool-Aid...

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

DJP, I haven't gone through and read all your comments but regarding this one, how can you not agree that art can "be better" and serve to transcend us past such, well put, lazy storytelling that degrades women and elevates the ego and violence of men? We should demand better and not help fund this line of storytelling. I don't play many of the games she mentions here but agree and often find myself at odds trying to get into the real life issues of many contemporary dramas that hark messages like this because they are removed from reality and not something I am willing to buy in to.

I believe games can transcend and become art. A scribble isn't art. By accepting, we say it is ok and lower our own moral ground. We have a long way to keep reaching and I believe in these times we have already lost a lot of ground while spreading ourselves thin. Think: what do we offer in excahnge for our technology, comfort, and sense of immediancy. It's all part of the process, so I am not bothered but I also know what side I am on too.

I apologize, but you'd really need to read my posts, as I believe I've already addressed your questions. Also, there is no universal, homogenous "we" - so "demanding" that art conform to what "we" think is "our" "moral ground" is pretty damn iffy. At any rate... read my posts, I've covered it.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

I had been thinking about what Dave said about lack of evidence or whatever, and just searched for a few minutes for terms like "study exposure media violence women attitude" (and similar terms). The above is a pretty small sampling - there are actually a ton of studies, and though I didn't (and still don't) have the time to exhaustively read or review anywhere close to all of them, it seems to me like it is at least reasonable (and not just "second wave feminist" rhetoric, or whatever) to suggest that video games that have degrading depictions of women and/or violence against women have a real psychological + physiological effect.

The problem with Google is that I can use it, too

http://bscw-app1.let.ethz.ch/pub/bscw.cgi/d5907581/Savage-Does%20viewing%20violent%20media%20really%20cause%20criminal%20violence.pdf

The above is a decent meta-analysis focusing on violence in general.... it focuses on MULTIPLE studies, looking for correlation.

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div46/articles/malamuth.pdf

And what do we have here? Let's see:

"With respect to exposure effects, the results did not reveal that repeated exposure to violent or nonviolent pornography had any significant effect on laboratory aggression against women. These findings appear to be inconsistent with previous data showing that exposure to violent pornography may increase males' laboratory aggression toward women (e.g., Donnerstein, 1980a,b; 1984; Donnerstein and Berkowitz, 1981; Malamuth, 1978). The most apparent explanation for this discrepancy is that earlier investigations examined immediate effects (i.e., in same session that exposures were presented) whereas the present experiment tested for relatively long-term effects. It may be that exposure to violent pornography might have an immediate impact on aggressive behavior against women but this effect may dissipate quickly over time."

So any aggression effect could be short-term. Attitudinal & long-term effects are far more difficult to quantify.

I might also add that one of the links that YOU PROVIDED, said the following:

There were no differences in response between the R-rated teen sex film and the X-rated, sexually explicit, nonviolent film, and the no-exposure control conditions on the objectification or the rape trial variables.

At the very least, this flies in the face of your previous claims SPECIFIC to sexual objectification (and NOT violence). Oops? Were you attempting to completely rescind that aspect of your objections?

So YOU are linking to hard(ish) data that more or less refutes at least THAT part of your previous statements. Mazel tov - remember this when Anita's videos start focusing on that topic, please!

It is completely reasonable to hypothesize what you are hypothesizing; the unreasonable part of it is the certainty with which you are jumping to conclusions & even prescribing/justifying action based on those conclusions!!!

Can't stress the difference enough! Been stressing it over & over & over again! And again! And again and again!

http://christucker.ytmnd.com/

You haven't just been "suggesting" - you've been describing your ideas as "extremely sound logic" and "self-evident" - and there's an absolutely gargantuan difference! Come on!

Also, for the record... why aren't you saying we should tone down the overall violence, then? If anything, the data you linked to suggests that depictions of VIOLENCE - whether it be sexual or non-sexual, committed against men or women - is the FAR more dangerous content. You're quoting data that partially supports your hypothesis, but far more clearly suggests that arguments against depictions of violence in general are the more logical result. Why the disparity?

I strongly recommend reading: http://bit.ly/1aRFWCp

Nadine Strossen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Strossen) is covering most of this far more eloquently than I can. Her points are EXACTLY, EXACTLY, EXACTLY, EXACTLY why third-wave feminism has moved away from media criticism of this nature and towards issues like equal pay & harassment in the workplace.

You two didn't get the memo. Read the bitly link. Twenty times over. PLEASE.

Please.

help me out here, please. i took pains in my response to native jovian to make it clear that women, men, and children are all capable of being the victims of sexual violence - what is important is recognizing that those acts are overwhelmingly committed by males. it is also important to understand - and i know you're gonna hate this - the ways in which the acts of sexual violence committed by men towards other men are driven by patriarchal rape-cultures, particularly those which exist in prisons.

I shall help you out! It is relevant because the argument being articulated was that depictions of violence against women contributed to (i.e. increased) violence against women. My point is, why scope it thus? It betrays the bias... why not... depictions of violence against people contributes to violence against people? If the 1-in-6 stat rings true for men as victims of sexual assault, then why is singling out the 1-in-6 stat for women relevant to an argument that SPECIFICALLY focuses on depictions of violence against women, and not simply depictions of violence against human beings? When you quote a stat like that, in this context, the bias is transparent.

Have either of you read A Clockwork Orange??

Here's just a food-for-thought, from-the-gut observation that I'm not going to bother to substantiate with facts, because I want you to dig deep about what you know & have observed about our world:

How come the cultures with the worst track records for human rights & equal treatment of women seem to be the ones LEAST tolerant of pornography, violent or otherwise? How come rape has decreased as the availability of sexually explicit material has only increased, along with the ease of obtaining it online? Ditto for film, television, & video game violence becoming MORE explicit, even as violent crime rates drop? I won't make the same causal mistakes you're making by claiming that these trends prove my point as "self-evident" or logical, but they should at least create more doubt than either of you care to express about your convictions.

These questions aren't meant to cut media/cultural criticism off at the knees, as Alex would claim, by suggesting that no art can ever be offensive/harmful. But we should point out how & why we find it offensive, personally, share our observations, and move on. That role - the role of the critic - is indeed both valuable & powerful. If that's all Anita, or Andy, or Alex were doing, I might still disagree due to having a different threshold or standard of what I find offensive, but that'd be fine, and we'd all have at least reflected on the topic, which is fantastic & productive.

It's the certitude, the correlation-is-not-causation fallacies being made left and right, the tenuous extrapolations, and the clear presence of bias in the perception OF bias that I find so problematic, especially since NONE OF THEM ARE NECESSARY to make a persuasive argument that video games as an art form would be more interesting & expressive if some of these tropes were less common!!

At any rate, my time is short as well.

I'm just going to keep linking: http://bit.ly/1aRFWCp over & over again, now

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

I'm giving up on Alex, specifically, until he reads The Blank Slate

Recommended reading to everyone else, as well!

We're going in circles because he keeps articulating what in my estimation is a worldview that is far too comfortable with gross oversimplification, and schizophrenic in its relationship with hard data.

http://1in6.org/the-1-in-6-statistic/

You quote the 1-in-6 women... here's the 1-in-6 men, FYI.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

Alex, I'm reluctant to say this, but have you even briefly considered that you've drunk the Sociology Kool-Aid a bit too much?

I think "waking up" to the concept of social construction & many of its implications is a wonderful, exciting experience that usually happens for most in college, if at all. Once you're cognizant of it, you tend to assume that others are not unless they employ the same terminology and reach the same conclusions. And it is entirely true that some people are oblivious to the way that society shapes & forms their preconceptions, foments bias, and often makes the arbitrary seem completely natural and "correct". The way you're reciting a lot of these concepts makes me think you took it all to heart, which is fantastic... in some ways. It also makes me think you're under the impression you're imparting new information & perspectives to me, personally. You are not.

I'm disappointed to hear that you agree with most of what Anita is saying, because it not only represents an outmoded form of feminism from which most serious academics have moved on, but it also fails to meet even the least rigorous standards of being - to coin a phrase from Fox News (who are notably not) - "fair and balanced". It's filled with what I've been referring to as "dial-a-mantra" - dogmatic recitation of perceived truths about the world which should not be "self-evident". Both you and Andy have now used "self-evident," and this bothers me as well.

http://ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=911230&postcount=658

I pointed out some examples & quotes in the above post. It's clear to me from your recent posts that you probably won't see anything problematic with them, but I'm crossing my fingers regardless.

Just as it is possible, as Anita points out, to enjoy the positive elements of a game while being cognizant of the negative, it is possible to agree with the overall "spirit" of a sentiment - equal rights and treatment for women - while being cognizant of extreme viewpoints that are expressed unilaterally, fail to entertain alternatives, and quite frankly reek of dogmatic recitation, without actual craft & consideration in their application.

I think she's done a pretty good job of putting together examples of the tropes she is exploring. There are numerous exceptions that many have pointed out, where a different game may have been preferable, but overall she's identifying the trend and context. Her actual analysis of WHY these tropes are negative, however, is both relatively minimal & thinly-supported; she spends a majority of her time explaining their permutations, which again she does a relatively decent job of. There's room for improvement, but I'm not sure I could do better. When she DOES briefly talk about why these tropes are harmful, though, she does so in reductionist, dogmatic, and flippant one-liners that are expressed in absolute terms and do not leave ANY room for alternative explanations. If you find that sort of "analysis" intellectually stimulating or in any way satisfactory, well, I'm just surprised, because your comments on this thread suggest to me that you'd have a higher standard.

rather it is the implication of a system in which men overwhelmingly benefit, and women disproportionately suffer as a result of a dominant-subordinate distribution of power. the institutions that arise from this paradigm subsist primarily on the ways in which they are able to pattern human lives (ie. the determination of gender roles), resulting in the kind of generational cycles in which individual action - while certainly informed or governed by these patterns - plays a role in perpetuating.

You do realize that to some of us... perhaps just me, I don't know for sure... this type of comment is pretty transparently just regurgitation? I mean, you're regurgitating it both eloquently AND accurately, which is still legitimately impressive on its own level, but to me it sounds like you're literally reconstructing something you were told, or read. I apologize if this observation offends, but there's no other way to say it - I don't see the skepticism, consideration, and curiosity that I would hope to see from a mind as clearly capable as your own. A system in which men overwhelmingly benefit? That's one way to slice things... what about a Marxist analysis; a system in which one class overwhelmingly benefits? Sociology itself is richer & more comprehensive than allows for a single paradigm to ring as true as you're reciting. For all of its "dominant" distribution of power, the male sex has proven far more expendable in human history. You can't "benefit" if you're dead. This is, incidentally, completely consistent with global, cross-cultural studies suggesting men are more aggressive, competitive, & risk-taking. When you talk about a "system" in which men benefit, it's so clear to me that you've ruled out any possibility that it is anything other than arbitrary & constructed. For if it is largely a commonly occurring result of our biology, it's not really a "system" any more, is it? And that undermines (current) sociology just a little, and we can't have ANY of that... From my perspective, sexual inequality is still something we clearly can, should, have (to some extent), and will continue to overcome, but to characterize it in these reductionist terms paints such an incomplete & misleading picture. I am surprised that it satisfies you.

You're a smart dude, and you can do a lot better than Anita & a lot better than second-wave feminism and a lot better than unchecked, uncalibrated sociology. I don't mean to shit on the field, I really don't, but it's been hijacked a bit. It is ironically unable to see the bias permeating its own ideas ABOUT bias, at least as I see it recited & interpreted by people I know, and on forums I visit. At any rate, you'll make me happy if you read The Blank Slate & just let its implications marinate a bit; I guarantee it will prove more intellectually stimulating than video game tropes coupled with second-wave feminist one-liners. I'm NOT telling you to abandon the frameworks you seem to have a very clear grasp on & are able to re-articulate quite clearly, I'm suggesting that you augment them, because to me - just my two cents - at the moment you are too transparently & unequivocally applying a single methodology.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

i do not see the contradiction. by saying "one and the same" i meant that the analysis of art is equivalent to analysis of people. that does not limit analysis of a people to the sole analysis of art, and i would argue that an appreciation of the validity of art criticism only enhances our ability to interpret those other aspects of society you've listed.

That's exactly what "equivalent" means, actually - it's bidirectional. It DOES limit the scope of whatever item "A" is to whatever the equivalent item "B" is. What you're trying to say is that the analysis of art is an important part of the analysis of people, or perhaps also that you can't analyze art without ALSO analyzing people. Doesn't matter much as we certainly agree on that version of the statement, but since you are articulately wielding a nice vocabulary, it seemed worth pointing out.

An appreciation of the "validity of art criticism" involves being CRITICAL about art criticism. You don't seem to acknowledge even the possibility that over-interpretation, over-extrapolation, overconfidence, projection, and bias can affect art criticism. It's clear to me that you appreciate the ability of art criticism to perceive bias in art, but you seem almost immune to the notion that it exhibits it.

as for the "dissonance" between real life and art, we may often find that it is that dissonance which art criticism is uniquely suited to address, and that dissonance does not have any less significance to our understanding of the human condition than those works which we may find to be "consonant".

Let's reel it in a bit - you're eloquent, but I feel like you're spiraling out of scope. With regard to finding REASONS & ANSWERS about domestic violence, an overreaching, second-wave feminist critique of video games is of unclear & unestablished value compared to investigating the act itself. Trying to understand domestic violence through art criticism puts up several layers of indirection & uncertainty. While it probably isn't useless, it's misguided in the sense that it will almost inevitably find whatever it sets out to discover, because its hypothesis is broad and its standard of evidence unclear.

you asked me how individual utterances relate to broader phenomena. any conceivable explanation necessitates that i "jump scope", and addressing marriage ritual was simply the avenue i chose to relate real-world, quantifiable expressions of a gender hierarchy, in which women are subordinate to the will and desire of men, to those the ways in which that system is perpetuated through smaller, seemingly insignificant gestures in art.

I really don't think you accomplished that, persuasively. You jumped from an innocuous hypothetical song lyric about being possessive in a relationship, which could just as easily be a POSITIVE type of possessiveness, or at least one that is not suited with the baggage you assign it, and from there linked right on over, quite comfortably and matter-of-factly, to the institution of marriage, and its roots as a contract of property. If you think you did a bang-up-job of connecting the dots, I'd tend to disagree.

your unwillingness to take the next step from comprehension and contextualization to discernible action ignores the ways in which individual utterances form into narratives, and how those narratives are among the principle ways in which historical context persists.

I act upon that which I am persuaded is valid; Anita is failing to do so. You're skipping RIGHT OVER the "burden of proof" part... you know that, right? I'm not saying "NO ART CRITICISM CAN EVER PERSUADE ME THAT ANY ART IS OBJECTIONABLE OR COULD BE HARMFUL IN ANY WAY!!" You're trying to paint my skepticism & demand for persuasive, cogent arguments that don't employ outdated & unreasonable feminist doctrine from 40 years ago as somehow resembling a blanket resistance to ALL critique of art.

Nice try.

its an easy trap to fall into, as it is only natural to assume the world of our experience is neutral, has-always-been, and divorced from its history - which, by the way, we are capable of experiencing or relating to through works of art in ways that we cannot from purely forensic research.

Condescension++

Consider that you're falling into a trap, yourself. While I am absolutely cognizant that society & culture have changed over the years, mostly for the better, certain things have remained remarkably similar. Cultural universals do exist, and serve as a reminder that social construction cannot explain away all aspects of human existence. We are social primates first, mammals second, and animals third, to generalize. You're falling into the trap that the human species is exempt from the processes that govern the evolution of life on Earth. More pointedly, however, you are falling into the trap that the perception of bias is free from bias.

dont believe i have said that art creates man, or that it creates the sort of "feedback loop" you mentioned. instead, i would say that videos like this are essential to our understanding of art as not strictly output to the world, but also as input to ourselves.

You haven't said that, you've just exhibited a philosophy that seems to both exempt art criticism from being fallible or permeated by bias AND also accepted forms of art criticism that attempt to extrapolate cultural side-effects from art without providing ample evidence. Your comment that videos like Anita's are essential to our understanding of art as input to ourselves doesn't speak to the persuasiveness of her comments, or even really touch on the POSSIBILITY that she could be plain old wrong. You're operating from a position of assuming accuracy & validity, and responding to skepticism with statements about art criticism being a positive thing. I didn't say it wasn't. I didn't say Anita's videos shouldn't exist in the first place. I specifically feel that they are shoddy examples of outdated second-wave feminism being applied willy-nilly.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

i believe that analysis of society through art and analysis of society "through its people" are one and the same. art is the expression of the people, the document of the human experience.

Oh goodness gracious no. I love me some art, don't get me wrong, but there is often a dissonance between real life and art. You can know a society's values through its economy, through its government, through its rituals, through its NON-fiction, through its craft (as distinguished from art), and through any number of things that do not fall under the umbrella of art.

You proceeded to qualify it as half of a whole... that sounds about right, but that's just a blatant contradiction with your opening sentence. "one and the same" is not equivalent to "half of a whole" or "a subset of the other"...

the idea of marriage as an expression of romantic love is a fairly recent development in this context. yet are we not troubled by the ways in which our contemporary language of romantic love relies so heavily on practices which explicitly render women as property to be exchanged by men? wedding rings are but one example; the criticism extends to the kinds of language and symbolism employed in popular song (the language of love as possession, to use my previous example), along with all other mediums of art. it is our responsibility, therefore, to question these practices, and if we find that they are harmful, or inadvertently communicating something that we do not intend, it is our responsibility to disavow them. and again, this recognition and disavowal does not dismiss wholesale the validity of romantic love, or union between two people.

You're so very interested in disavowal. I find it far more critical to comprehend & contextualize. I feel like you're skipping some key steps & oversimplifying things left and right just to justify making bold, unfounded claims about what art means and how it affects people. You've jumped scope from art to ritual now... Western culture has largely re-contextualized marriage. We should be proud of this. I have zero idea who you think the "we" is in all of your statements about what we should & shouldn't do; it troubles me.

At the end of the day, you'll see what you want to see. The more you learn about homo sapiens the animal, the less I think you'll give such extreme agency & import to a lot of this, but perhaps you'll continue thinking that art & society creates man, and not the other way around...

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

what is the domain of the cultural critic if not the interpretation of the objects of culture as they relate to real-world social phenomena? and where better to derive the values of a society than its expression through art? even if "direct study" "makes more sense", why would we be content with half-resolutions to such deeply complex phenomena?

Direct study provides much more than HALF the resolution, and deals in harder facts, direct evidence, and firsthand accounts. The domain of the cultural critic is absolutely to attempt such interpretation; hopefully most aren't so optimistic as to think they'll find either reasons or answers, however, and most importantly it ALL needs to be calibrated & heavily qualified. Second-wave feminists attempt to employ cultural criticism with a certitude that is MIND-BOGGLINGLY OVERCONFIDENT in its (very elaborate & specific!) claims - hence "mind-reading". You've got the ROLE right, it's the execution I'm concerned with.

As for "where better to derive the values of a society than its expression through art" - that's quite easy: through its people. Not as much of an option when you're talking about ancient history, perhaps. But we're not.

i am not trying to say that there is a one-to-one relationship between explicit endorsement of domestic violence in art (if such a thing exists) and direct subsequent action by those who experience the work. what we are talking about here are not one-to-one relationships of that kind.

That's fantastic that YOU'RE not trying to say that, but Andy & Anita more or less are.

what is possible, however, is that a work of popular music, for example, might unintentionally reinforce or affirm a negative value - let's say women as the sexual property of men - through poor expression of a positive or otherwise innocuous value - let's say romantic love. as sarkeesian states at the beginning of her videos, it is possible to appreciate the positive value (love) while recognizing and disavowing the negative (possessiveness).

Recognizing... I'm ALMOST there with you on. Some of the time, at least. Disavowing... I'm not sure that's even necessary, on a per-work basis. Furthermore, "women as the sexual property of men" is too literal & overarching a "negative value" to instantaneously connect to simple possessiveness, or over-possessiveness. You're too eager to connect large-scale social phenomena to individual artistic expressions.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

if you are suggesting that she is "othering" men with those kinds of statements, i'd have to disagree. the process by which a group of people are made other is by definition a one-way street: the "other" can only be interpreted as such when held in comparison to the group or ideology whose perspective is naturalized as dominant.

You DO realize that's ONE definition of the word, that there are multiple interpretations, and that you're categorically suggesting there's only one valid interpretation, and that it conveniently makes it completely acceptable for one group to draw all sorts of bogus boundaries because they are, ostensibly, not dominant? Do you not see the many flaws with this definition? For one, dominant how? Where? Secondly, aren't "male" and "female" very broad labels? To call something a "male power fantasy" is woefully unspecific... can it NEVER be shared/experienced by females? Is it always heterosexual? Is it even fundamentally problematic?

Another aside: http://www.explosion.com/32223/why-the-male-power-fantasy-has-an-important-role-in-gaming/

when sarkeesian uses the phrase "crude, unsophisticated male power fantasies", she is setting up her argument towards the end of the video that the "damseled" women are, in fact, so insignificant and removed from their humanity that they do not truly represent even a partial expression of woman-hood: the women are merely stand-ins for patriarchal responsibilities, totems to be reclaimed by men in a quest to reassert threatened masculinity. more concisely, as sarkeesian quoted in the first video: "in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team; they are the ball."

Yes, and what a lovely, quotable, reductionist soundbite it makes for!!

Last I checked, human history was made up of people - men and women - and it involved the blood, sweat, & tears of both sexes. To call it a game is to employ far too much agency & control to the "players" AND to diminish myriad tragedies, but from a biological perspective & w/ regards to game theory and warfare, the "ball" metaphor - when corrected to simply represent a resource - could be construed as meaningful. The only problem being that in this "game" MEN are resources ("balls"!), too. More expendable ones, in fact. Both the metaphor and the outdated theory that it attempts to distill are just kind of silly, and we should know better by now. The existence of patriarchy itself is both valid and readily apparent, but the feminist theory of patriarchy propagated in the 1970's that takes it to illogical extremes continues to persist because of rhetoric like this.

I don't know how many ways I can say the same thing - if the women don't represent "even a partial" expression of womanhood, then the men don't represent "even a partial" expression of manhood, These are all slippery terms - how are you quantifying "partial"? Where is the comparative analysis? What does "womanhood" even MEAN in this context? This type of "analysis" just gives you carte blanche to make all sorts of claims that collapse inwards on the flexibility of their own language...

i would argue that you've answered your own question: the reason we aren't asking that question is because "things aren't equal." to acknowledge inequality, then in the same breath leapfrog it in an attempt to negate the role of social construct, or to suggest that inequality operates like a see-saw, as some equally distributed quantity, fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the inequality we are dealing with.

"Things aren't equal" shouldn't be one-stop-shopping for explaining every last instance of every last difference between the sexes. I didn't answer my own question because "things aren't equal," I answered my own question because people (unfortunately, liberals) ASSUME all lopsided gender ratios stem from socially-constructed inequality. You can talk about "fundamentally" misunderstanding things until the cows come home, but you're not talking about anything concrete, so I'm not sure how fundamental you can ever get. The nature of the inequality we are dealing with, in this specific instance, is sex ratios within vocations. I quoted the Pinker debate for a reason, and I do hope you read it in its entirety.

im not sure that i said we cannot or should not study these things, and if i did it certainly would not be because i was afraid of upsetting someone, or that it tested my personal comfort (i would hope that my willingness to engage these videos on their own merit are at least an indication of that much ). what i meant was, let's say hypothetically that the studies are correct, and that while women are no less likely to possess "average" intelligence than men, based on their genetic predisposition, men are more likely to occupy the "fringe" areas (idiots & geniuses) while women are more likely to occupy somewhere in the middle. that does not change the fact that the results do not wholly explain the kinds of disparities between men and women that exist outside of areas of exceptional achievement (the 4:1 ratio in computer science programs, for example), nor does it excuse the fact that the studies by their very nature exclude the kind of historical and social context necessary to provide anything approaching a complete picture.

Did you read the entire debate? There were points that spoke not to aptitude but to interest... the concept of variability that you're referring to was just one of several points, including global studies that show women consistently stating different priorities in life than men. I'll save you some time; if you can grok the full meaning of the bold quote below, provided in context, that's a step in the right direction.

Regarding bias: as I mentioned at the outset, I don't doubt that bias exists. But the idea that the bias started out from some arbitrary coin flip at the dawn of time and that gender differences have been perpetuated ever since by the existence of that bias is extremely unlikely. In so many cases, as Eagly and the Stereotype-Accuracy people point out, the biases are accurate. Also, there's an irony in these discussion of bias. When we test people in the cognitive psychology lab, and we don't call these base rates "gender," we applaud people when they apply them. If people apply the statistics of a group to an individual case, we call it rational Bayesian reasoning, and congratulate ourselves for getting them to overcome the cognitive illusion of base rate neglect. But when people do the same thing in the case of gender, we treat Bayesian reasoning as a cognitive flaw and base-rate neglect as rational! Now I agree that applying base rates for gender in evaluating individual men and women is a moral flaw; I don't think that base rates ought to be applied in judging individuals in most cases of public decision-making. But the fact that the statistics of a gender are applied does not mean that their origin was arbitrary; it could be statistically sound in some cases.

the idea that the "hard sciences" of mathematics trump the "soft sciences" of history and sociology is one which has been perversely adapted to reinforcing gender-based hierarchy, and moreover it is not exclusive to issues of sexism. (maybe its just because i recently saw django unchained, but im reminded of the old theories of phrenology, a pseudo-science which through contemporary eyes is almost immediately recognized as an attempt to couch racism in pure, neutral logic and rationality - the cornerstone of civilized society and the domain of rich white men).

The soft sciences will BECOME harder sciences due to the work of people like Pinker. You're right that this line of inquiry can be perverted, and has been, but that's all the more reason to reclaim it.

can we agree that blackface (for example) is unilaterally harmful? if so, certainly it is within the realm of possibility that these tropes might be as well, or at the very least that they feed into larger, harmful phenomena in a negative (if unintentional) way.

Unilaterally harmful? No, we can't agree on that. It's (almost) unilaterally offensive. I find it offensive. I think word choice is paramount, here. You previously used the word "offensive," and in our culture, at this moment in time, it's commonly accepted as thus. "Harmful" takes it one step further and starts postulating implications from said offense; at this point your causal reasoning is tenuous. The harmfulness of something can either be quantified & correlated, or it cannot. The offense of something is subjective, and is essentially governed by popular sentiment. The popular sentiment at this point in time does not appear to take offense at many of the things Anita is attempting to interpret, because the interpretations do not appear to ring true, for most. You can of course argue that people SHOULD be offended, they just don't KNOW it because they're not THINKING RIGHT... but now who's condescending? Also, I personally view blackface as a temporal thing... in an ideal future, hundreds of years from now, I would hope that blackface, whiteface, blueface, and any other color-face should not have a knee-jerk reaction, and that races & faces should be able to poke fun at each other without the baggage of history weighing us down.

I don't think we want to be ADDING to the list of things we find offensive (or worse, construe as objectively harmful) in art, I think we want to be building a cognizance & awareness about their potential implications and letting artists & audiences explore their tastes & interests with relative autonomy.

"they feed into larger, harmful phenomena in a negative (if unintentional) way" - this is just the same tired "IT'S ALL ONE GIANT FEEDBACK LOOP!!" argument, rephrased. It's baseless conjecture, and should be treated as such.

im sorry but i just cant get on board with that. as somebody for whom creativity and art are inseparable from my lived experience (and i have to say, im surprised to hear another artist say that they dont see art as a vehicle for real-world meaning in any area, let alone domestic violence), it seems self-evident to me that the existence of physical biology, evolutionary psychology, and the like do not constitute a whole picture as to make art trivial or meaningless.

Wow, you failed to grasp my meaning entirely...

Did I say that art wasn't a "vehicle for real-world meaning"? You actually thought that's what I meant, from what I said? I said that looking for reasons and answers about domestic violence in art was misguided. How on earth did you get from point A to point B?

I'll stand by the statement that I actually made; let me explain:

• Reasons are causal
  
• Answers are conclusive
  

If you're serious about improving the world and want to curtail domestic violence, I don't think you look for causation in art. I don't think you look for resolution in art. I *DO* think that art can be a vehicle for expressing individual thoughts, feelings, & beliefs on the topic. Again, I think word choice is paramount. Never would I suggest that art is impotent to express real-world concern, or even achieve real-world results; what I'm questioning is the accuracy and productivity of sociologists & cultural critics in INTERPRETING that art, usually attempting to read the minds of the artists, the audience, or both, and drawing causal lines to human behavior OR going one step further and proposing remediation through modification TO THE ART. These are misguided forms of redress; the intent is (usually) good, but the method is wrong. If you want to understand the reasons for something, and find answers regarding it, it makes more sense to cut out the middleman and study it directly. I do think the appreciation, interpretation, & criticism of art can be a part of the overall equation, in better understanding the human condition. You specifically said "reasons & answers," though, and that does seem to be what she thinks she is obtaining, and so that's what I responded to.

i think we are mostly in agreement here. a lot of art works do a poor job of representing a true portrait of the human experience when they resort to the "quick and easy" mentioned in the thread earlier. i believe that a work is only successful to the extent that it resonates as authentic to the experiences of its audience. if video games have a poor track record of appealing to women in this way thus far (and as you say it is likely that women are not the only underprivileged group to have this experience), i would say that it has more to do with the relative immaturity of the medium than some inherent limitation. and if video games have such an excellent track record of appealing to men (ie. dominant/privileged groups) thus far (especially when it is at the expense of those underprivileged groups), i would say that is justification alone for this kind of criticism.

More women than ever are buying & playing games, so your oversimplified, zero-sum view of gender appeal isn't even accurate. We might agree that a lot of works do a poor job of exploring the depth of the human condition, but here's the catch: I don't think that's a bad thing. This boils down to art vs. escapism, more or less, but I think part of the human condition ENJOYS escapism, and that within escapist fantasies you can still have art of a more aesthetic nature. Video games may be an immature art form, but they are compromised of ancient ones - visual art, music, and storytelling. The combination of these components, with the key added element of interactivity, is basically what sets the medium apart. Long after the medium has matured, there will still be and SHOULD still be games that do not focus on exploring the human condition, but allow for escapism, release, outlet, transgression, violence, sex, profanity, absurdity, and all the many components that still play a vital role in all other forms of art.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

as to the point about some conspiracy on the part of men to intentionally suppress women...it's not how i would frame the discussion, to say the least. if nothing else, it has the unfortunate side effect of creating an artificial divide between men and women, feeding into an "us vs. them" mentality. i would argue that it does even greater damage than that, by contributing to deeply ingrained processes of dehumanization and othering...but more on that below.

You don't see how her comments - in the first video perhaps moreso, but still here - play quite specifically to a sense of otherness? Using phrases like "crude, unsophisticated male power fantasies"?? She's doing EXACTLY what you're describing. Your responses are measured & calibrated & reasonable in all the ways that her rhetoric is not. She is "othering" left and right...

i am certainly not qualified to speak to any theories of genetics, brian chemistry, etc., regarding a person's aptitude or behaviour, so im gonna tread lightly. i will say, however, that for all the controls used in the study pinker cites to ensure that there is no difference in quality or access to education, or for however accurate the cognitive profiles they provide may be (though as spelke suggests, what differences exist are not enough to justify the staggering disparity between men and women in the fields of mathematics and sciences), the reality is that we do not live in a world of all-things-being-equal.

The nice thing about Pinker is that he tends to cite meta-analyses of multiple studies - larger data sets that have greater statistical merit. I believe this is in part to combat the often thinly-supported field of sociology, which is replete with examples of people drawing specious conclusions from puny data sets that usually reflect whatever bias they approached the topic with. Pinker acknowledges that things aren't equal, and even labels himself a feminist (definitely third-wave!), but he simultaneously questions the notion that ANY field that is dominated by one sex is 100% a result of social construction or cultural influence. Take sociology, for example. Or high school English teachers. Why aren't we asking "Why aren't there more male high school English teachers??"?

i wanna be clear that im not suggesting that any of the things being discussed here or in the debate you linked are the equivalent of being a member of the KKK. what im trying to say is that sexism, racism, homophobia, and any other form of discrimination based on biological or sexual difference, thrive on discourses of otherness. that is, it is the inability of group-of-people A to relate to group-of-people B as equally human which allows them to establish and perpetuate a system based on a dominant-subordinate relationship between the two. it's this process of identification, ostracism, and dehumanization which creates an environment in which women are overwhelmingly the victims of sexual or otherwise gender-based violence at the hands of men....but more on that below.

This type of attitude sets up an academic boundary of inquiry - we can't study THAT, because it's "othering"!! - that ends up hurting more than helping, especially when BOTH liberals AND conservatives are trying to twist the arm of science to support their relative agendas. Trying to turn a blind eye to any legitimate biological or sexual differences in the interest of not upsetting anyone is being a little too comfortable with ignorance, in my opinion. It also leaves things open to sociologists who can just make claims out of thin (or very scant) air. I'd rather have the harder science and try to understand the world - it's not mutually exclusive with being tolerant, with promoting equality, and with attempting to seek redress of social ills. I'm very, very frustrated with liberals (I'm a liberal) whose relationship with science stops at the boundary of their personal comfort, and who hold that any facts that don't DIRECTLY support universal human homogeneity and a blank slate (more Pinker!) should be ignored or demonized.

I believe it is preferable - MORE ethical, even - to be tolerant & promote equality under the law with the conviction that the biological diversity of the human race, including the brain itself, is not a threat to such beliefs.

namely the "well, i don't see [x] as paternalistic, therefore..." argument. it's an argument which says a lot more about the person expressing it than the topic at hand, specifically that they feel that they are being accused of taking pleasure from (or having any hand in at all) things which are harmful or cruel to others, when the expressed goal of this series (and other works like it) is to reveal those aspects of art we may have overlooked because we take them for granted, or because they are especially subtle.

What if they're just not there? I mean, clearly the trope/patterns are there, and I actually think there's a lot of merit in simply pointing them out. Where you lose me is the unilateral interpretation of the trope as "harmful" or reflecting - or even inciting - socially-constructed ills. Playing the "that argument says a lot more about the person expressing it than the topic at hand" card is pretty lame, btw. I really appreciate the rest of your post, but this sentiment was expressed previously in the thread, and it seems like the argumentative equivalent of "I know you are but what am I"... just saying.

when a sociologist and cultural critic like sarkeesian is confronted with a statistic that says one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, or that four women are killed by current/former partners every day, they are likely to pursue answers or reasons in the objects of culture

Yeah, see... I honestly think this course of inquiry, on their part, is largely misguided. I simply don't look to art for meaningful answers or reasons for domestic violence. You've got real victims, real perpetrators, real facts, actual physical biology, evolutionary psychology, criminal pathology, and MORE as options... and you're gonna deconstruct video games? Because maybe if they were less... something.... the violence could have been prevented? There's zero correlation; it amounts to mental masturbation and talking in circles about culture being "one giant feedback loop" with zero onus on the individual making the claim to support it with any actual data. I've said it before, that's not an -ology, and it's barely "cultural criticism" - it's the projection of agenda, and it will inevitably find whatever fault it thinks it perceives, as any failure to do so undermines its very existence...

To clarify, I do think that sociology as a field has a time, a place, and a lot of potential value. I just feel like it should stay the fuck away from art, basically. Always seems to get it so very, very, very wrong.

As a minor side note: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

the "damsel in distress" trope is of particular interest in this regard, because it is one in which the humanity of a female character is exchanged for her symbolic woman-ness. these characters are frequently rendered as lacking any of the agency or capacity for self-realization that we would expect of a person, and instead they are relegated to the role of plot device. i dont want to rehash the points made in the video; my point is not that women should never be depicted being captured, incapacitated, killed, or rescued by men, but that there are ways of portraying these realities that do not come at the expense of their humanity.

There are ways of portraying all SORTS of realities that do not compromise the humanity of those involved; video games don't seem particularly adept at focusing on them. Yet. Nor do a lot of comics, or action films, or works of fantasy in general. Certain mediums of fiction/entertainment in GENERAL are not particularly interested in the humanity of their characters, regardless of context. It's not just "crude, unsophisticated male power fantasies" either. I'd like to see writing for games that focused more on humanity, but it's a scarcity that cuts across the board, and as far as I can see is in no way localized to or heightened for female characters.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

The scope to a problem always includes a solution. If there isn't a solution, the problem isn't worth mentioning. And if proposing the solution would be counterproductive (as you claim), then the solution must be counterproductive, in which case the solution creates a situation worse than the problem. In which case, again, the problem isn't worth mentioning.

It's a cop-out.

First off, while the scope to a problem includes a resolution, it doesn't always include a specific solution, and plenty of problems are worth mentioning that we do not yet have specific solutions for, so I don't know where ANY of that is coming from.

I didn't claim that proposing a solution would be counterproductive in general, I claimed that if SHE were the one doing it, it would more clearly demonstrate the flawed, outdated, second-wave feminism she is employing in her analysis.

In other words, I disagree with her framing of the "problem," and I think more people would, too, if she WERE offering up "solutions". And I question whether it's really a problem to begin with, as opposed to a general weakness of the art form at present, which will course-correct naturally by adapting to changing gamer demographics.

At any rate, I don't fault her for not providing clear suggestions, because I think analysis has merit in and of itself. I just fault her analysis for smacking of outmoded, partisan, binary attitudes about sex & gender.

[OCR02667 - Sonic 3D Blast (SAT) "Renewal"]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies]

Except that even as a discussion topic, all she's doing is offering an opinion based on an overbearing sense of cynicism, personal bias, and sexist rhetoric.

But it DOES get people talking!! I'm literally confused as to whether Andy agrees with every last thing she's saying or not; taking the apologist route of claiming that she's accomplished her goal because people are discussing her videos doesn't actually speak to the merit of any of her statements, only their effect.

I thought we'd covered this a LONG way back on this thread and basically agreed that she HAS been effective in getting people to at least consider the topic(s). Why keep repeating this observation as any sort of valid defense against actual criticisms of her actual statements, though?

In addition to her indecision on whether or not women should or shouldn't be involved in depictions of violence, which is not only confusing and batty, but the way she words it is also partly offensive, as she's indirectly saying that it's perfectly cool for men to be brutally maimed and/or incapacitated.

I'm obviously short on free time and can't respond in full. I feel like I made a lot of solid points in previous posts that Andy never really countered & instead is now replying to this new discussion with points that have already been covered at length.

At any rate, new video same as old. Same dial-a-mantra second wave feminism strongly at play. "Damsel in Distress" has now been widened to include characters who are 99% empowered for a game and then BRIEFLY vulnerable in the last 1%. Also widened to include characters who fight back, but unless in doing so they completely annihilate every last enemy in the game, then their efforts are meaningless and do not count. Also, regardless of how violent a game is overall, any violence done to them is distinct & separate, etc., etc., etc.

Choice quotes? A few from earlier on:

• "crude, unsophisticated male power fantasies"
  
  • Dial-a-mantra condescension, redundant adjective use, unnecessarily pejorative when the point shouldn't be that "male power fantasies" shouldn't exist, just that more variety would be nice. Level of narrative sophistication is usually tied to how vital the story is to that genre of game.
    

  [*]"appealing, expected, or normal"

  • Mentioned in regard to "paternalistic" feelings. "Expected" vs. "Normal" = redundant, relative to what I think she's trying to say... Also, who the F is she to say what's "normal" or "appealing"? These are dangerous terms... this statement is a completely empty, aborted idea. Of course, had she actually followed through, I think even SHE would have realized how offensive the implications would be...
    

  [*]"nothing "mature" about most of these stories"

  • Yeah, and we GET that. BINGO!! There's nothing "mature" about most of these stories - their verisimilitude and narrative depth are NOT a focal point!!! You can (more or less) waste your energy deconstructing them up one side and down the other, using any rubric or framework or methodology you want, but most of them ARE relatively immature stories with MANY of the trappings of so-called "male power fantasies". So? Why is that always a bad thing? Oh, it must not be "appealing, expected, or normal"...
    

Vapid stuff, but if it gets people talking, it must be good...?

the problem with the second video is still the same as the first one; she's pointing out what the problem is but without giving any clear parameters as to what the solution is

This this this this this times a thousand.

I disagree, for the record; I think that what she's pointing out as problems, and everyone seems to be agreeing are problems, in many cases simply aren't. Or at least, aren't problems specific to "tropes vs. women in video games," but rather simply common weaknesses/contrivances in the art form.

Are there too many games with "male" power fantasies out there, and does the percentage make it hard for some folks to take vidya games seriously as an art form?

You betcha! High-five, agree completely...

Is this a "problem" because "male" power fantasies in and of themselves need to go away, and anything that vaguely resembles them has a negative effect on society?

No.

So, framing the "problem" is key. Offering solutions would be nice, but that's both out of scope AND would more directly expose the many pitfalls of applying outdated approaches to thinking about men & women.

why such a disparity, when men and women have access to the same schools? are they somehow being denied the same level of access to technology? maybe the reason is cultural, that engineering or computer science related activities are gendered male, and that children are aware of their gender roles at a very young age. who is responsible for that...?

I keep listening to that Shenmue ReMix, FYI. Brilliant stuff.

I love your use of the word "maybe" because that's exactly it: MAYBE. The problem is that "maybe" isn't in the vernacular of second-wave feminists on topics like this. Instead, it's an absolutist paradigm in which it is self-evident (a term Andy has actually employed himself, without irony) that men are intentionally keeping women away from the science & tech jobs as part of a concerted effort to protect the patriarchy. There's no room for "maybe," or even investigation. There's ABSOLUTELY no room for the alternative explanation, either - that genes play a role. That the sexes are different, and that science & tech maybe appeal less, innately, regardless of aptitude. RE: video games, that competition in & of itself maybe appeals somewhat less, innately, to women. To even suggest this POSSIBILITY will get you crucified in the Sarkeesian world of throwback second-wave feminist thought; and yet there is science to support that, at least in terms of risk-taking behavior and competitiveness, the sex differences are not only globally observable, but STRONGER in cultures that have MORE rights & freedom & equality for women.

READ: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.html

Note that being competitive & risk-taking are double-edged swords, i.e. not wholly positive...

Pinker never suggests a completely genetic explanation, he only suggests that genes could be a meaningful part of the equation. With regard to gender roles, you should always question your assumptions, AND question authority, AND society, but you should also QUESTION THE QUESTIONS. "Social Construction" is often an intellectually bankrupt explanation for understanding the characteristics of human society...

similarly, it is suggested in this video that the reason for plots in which the player has to kill the damsel in order to move on are likely the result of the FPS paradigm in which a player's only way of engaging the environment is to attack it. at no point in the video does sarkeesian accuse video game developers who are guilty of this trope as anything more than unimaginative.

She describes having gamers save the damsel as being "paternalistic" and that such sentiments shouldn't be considered "appealing, expected, or normal"... she also attempts to read the minds of said developers and suggests that they're including violence against women just to make the stories/games seem "more mature" and then says that there is "nothing "mature" about most of these stories" - I think she's doing a lot more in this video, and even more in the first, than simply saying these tropes are unimaginative. If that's all she was saying, I'd have far fewer objections, if any.

One should always apply the same close-reading to the analysis itself that the analysis claims to be performing on its subject; I think if you did, you'd realize that there are more allegations/implications being leveled than simply a lack of creativity.

towards the end of the video sarkeesian provides three examples of games which tapped into that same emotional reservoir based on death and loss, doing so without relying on the dehumanization of anybody, let alone women.

So dehumanization in fiction is bad?? I'm not even joking... here's the thing... war, and almost any mortal competition (MORTAL KOMBATTTT!!!) involves dehumanization. PEOPLE dehumanize. People also make FICTION, and in that fiction - which usually tells a story involving PEOPLE - dehumanization, along with so many other human faults, often occurs. It is up to us, the observant audience, to decide whether a given work is DEPICTING dehumanization among & between its characters, or actually EXHIBITING it directly. Drawing this line is crucial. Happily, most of us CAN, but we somehow manage to forget this when exposed to the vitriolic rhetoric of second-wave feminists, puritanical censors, and anyone else who would seek to equate these two automatically.

[OCR02666 - Mega Man 2 "Acid Flashbacks"]

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[OCR02664 - Wild Arms "Hope for the Future"]

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[OCR02665 - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team "Beneath the Blaze"]

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