
Woman's call to end video game misogyny sparks vicious online attacks - jellicle
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/womans-call-to-end-video-game-misogyny-sparks-vicious-online-attacks/article4405585/
======
haberman
Linked article is scant on details. This all appears to concern this
Kickstarter project, which is to create a series of videos that survey common
themes to how women are represented in video games:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-
wome...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-
video-games)

Here is the author's blog, which has a lot of updates about the harassment she
has received as a result of it: <http://www.feministfrequency.com/>

There are some truly shocking and disturbing things in here, like the
screenshots from the "game" someone made where you can beat up a photo of her
face: [http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/07/image-based-
harassm...](http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/07/image-based-harassment-
and-visual-misogyny/#more-3085)

~~~
saturn
> the screenshots from the "game" someone made

One person. They're obviously troubled. Are we really going to let the actions
of one person change the frame of the whole discussion?

A game allowing you to beat up a woman is, I hope, repulsive to any HN reader.
But its existence, especially when it's so easy these days, means nothing in
and of itself. You could probably feed in any picture you like, man or woman.
It's not a weighty factor in a discussion.

~~~
breadbox
The game was made by one person, yes. But it's a little misleading to
emphasize that this was "one person" when they were representative of the
massive amounts of anti-feminist sentiment that was sent her way. If you look
through the random sampling of comments her video garnered, it's hard to claim
that the video game "changed the frame of the discussion" that was already
well underway.

~~~
papsosouid
You aren't seeing a random sampling though, she deletes any comments that are
critical of her work or her funding method. She only leaves comments that are
supportive, and ones that are abusive trolling.

~~~
mkr-hn
Do you have any evidence to back this up?

edit: papsosouid was unwilling to provide evidence. You can skip this subtree
and not miss anything.

~~~
papsosouid
Not really, just first hand experience having her remove my post. You could
consider the fact that there are no polite yet critical comments to her as
evidence, but that could also be explained by there being absolutely no people
who disagree with her and are polite.

~~~
mkr-hn
That's not evidence. For all I know you posted a hateful screed and it
deserved to be deleted.

~~~
papsosouid
I know it is not evidence. Which is why I said "not really". You are welcome
to believe that there are no people in the world who disagree with her and are
polite if you think that is a more likely explanation for the complete lack of
polite criticism on channels she controls even though such polite criticism
clearly does exist on channels she doesn't control. You are also welcome to
believe that I posted a "hateful screed" and it was deleted, despite the
obvious fact that she doesn't delete those, they are all still there to view
right now, and she revels in them and uses them for publicity and sympathy.

~~~
mkr-hn
"You are welcome to believe that there are no people in the world who disagree
with her and are polite"

I did not say this.

"You are also welcome to believe that I posted a "hateful screed" and it was
deleted"

I did not say this.

I asked for evidence. You're trying to divert attention from your failure to
back a claim up.

~~~
papsosouid
I have tried to be polite, but you are being deliberately obtuse. Which part
of "not really" is difficult to understand? I did not claim to have evidence,
quite the contrary I told you clearly I do not have evidence. And I know you
didn't say those things, but you would have to believe those things in order
to explain the state of every communication channel she controls. Look up
"implication" in the dictionary.

I am not trying to back up a claim for you. I do not care what you believe,
you are not required to be rational. Believe whatever you like. But do try to
at least be constructive if you wish to converse. Deliberately ignoring the
words of the person you are responding to, and responding to the opposite of
what they said is not productive.

~~~
mkr-hn
You can start a blog if you want to make a serious accusation of censorship
without backing it up. That sort of thing is usually discouraged in places
where people try to discuss things intelligently.

~~~
papsosouid
Or I can share my personal experiences here on a forum for discussing our
opinions. If I feel that I need your approval to speak in the future I'll be
sure to ask.

~~~
scott_s
You could simply show us what you wrote. More important than mere opinion on
this forum is an actual _contribution_ to the to the overall discussion. A
claim without support is not a significant contribution.

~~~
papsosouid
Do you save a copy of every comment you write anywhere in case it is rejected
by the moderator and then someone randomly insists you must be a liar? I'm not
sure if that is common, but it hasn't been a habit of mine. And what exactly
would that accomplish? Would you actually believe me that my post was not
approved, or would you and the other troll insist that I am just making it all
up? I don't have proof remember?

This entire thread of "prove the sky is blue" has not been a contribution to
the discussion, your post included. So, why continue it? I simply pointed out
that looking at the comments that were allowed through does not necessarily
reflect on what comments were posted. This is incredibly obvious, and it is
rather sad that "durrr prove it" is the level of hypocritical non-discourse
here.

Anyone (yourself included) can look at how there is rational, polite criticism
of her work on independent channels like twitter. And anyone (yourself
included still) can look at how there is no such criticism on channels she
controls. So painting the response to her work as being only trolling bullshit
by pointing only at the channels that have been wiped of other responses is
dishonest.

~~~
mkr-hn
You could have said "I have no examples and didn't think to keep a copy of
mine." Everyone would have realized you were basing your claim of censorship
on circumstantial evidence and a lone anecdote. This whole subthread could
have been avoided.

------
dmix
The kids on ebaum and 4chan love exploiting the mainstream worlds extreme
sensitivity and political correctness with these "raids".

The fact that it was a post about misogyny that sparked it was probably just
incidental. It's the fact that she demonstrated sensitivity to language and
had an online presence made her the perfect target for such an attack.

Mainly because the most that these kids _can do_ in a raid is posting
offensive things on web sites.

~~~
ahelwer
I don't really believe this. I've seen too much of the average gamer's
opinions on women; this shouldn't be dismissed as a bunch of 4channers being
4channers. There are deep problems in the community and they need to be
acknowledged and fought.

If you want to see how pervasive the problem is, there's a subreddit called
ShitRedditSays which records horrible (and highly upvoted) submissions and
comments. This is a real problem with real attitudes.

Edit: Ah yes, I should have known that mentioning SRS would garner such a
reaction... people really don't seem to like being called out on their
crappiness.

~~~
jquery
You're proving the parent's point. ShitRedditSays is a troll subreddit created
by SomethingAwful forums. It's purpose is to parody the extreme outrage that
occurs anytime something un-PC is said. The fact it has attracted some people
who are actually serious is like how The Colbert Report has a conservative
following.

~~~
ben0x539
Could you provide some background on that? I was under the impression that
ShitRedditSays is an outgrowth of the attempt to embarass reddit into getting
rid of the child porn subforum on their site.

~~~
pseudonym
Well, the obvious starting point is this[1] SA Thread that directly led to the
Reddit-embarassing that resulted in the dropping of the pedo boards. You may
or may not be able to view it, but the short version is that they created a
"Reddit bomb"[2] and sent it to a number of news agencies. There is a followup
thread which confirms that several goons were the some of the first SRS
subreddit mods, but with the exception of the thread below, most Reddit
threads end up getting shitcanned because of the eventual devolution of the
thread. I'm hunting through the archives, but I'm unsure if the thread even
exists anymore, as the search can't find it.

Edit: It doesn't exist in my post history anymore, so I'm pretty sure that
entire thread was purged.

[1][http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=346...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3466025&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1)

[2]<http://pastebin.com/PenXAGz7>

~~~
ben0x539
A humanitarian mission from the Something Awful forums to combat the
omnipresent misogyny on reddit to follow up on the successful removal of child
porn might be ironic, unprecedented and doomed to fail, but I don't see why
it's necessarily in bad faith or "trolls"?

~~~
jquery
Just an aside, it wasn't child porn, but the collation of _public photos_ of
under-dressed minors. The witch-hunt associated was basically a witch-hunt
against thoughtcrimes (the horror of someone wanking it to a minor), not
against actual child abuse.

I feel this is important because I've used Reddit for years and I don't think
it's fair to associate them with child porn, because they have _never_
tolerated child porn.

~~~
ceol
Actually, most of the images were swiped from girls' Facebook and Photobucket
accounts without their permission. These were definitely not meant to be
spread around for wanking material.

------
pdeuchler
Off Topic:

It's rather interesting to note that as a society we have advanced enough to
the point that we can donate the resources to support roughly 3 average size
families for a year to a "pop culture critic" to study _video games_.

No condemnations or moral objections, just merely stating an interesting
observation.

~~~
wickedchicken
> we can donate the resources to support roughly 3 average size families for a
> year to a "pop culture critic"

At least she is attempting to advance society. If you want to feel depressed,
209 _million_ USD was spent on
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(film)>.

209 million.

~~~
Almaviva
In another light, society, using pricing as a communication signal, has
determined that its value is worth 100 million USD more than its cost. I'm not
sure whether that's less or more depressing.

> The film has earned $64,372,300 in North America, as of July 9, 2012, and
> $236,650,220 in other countries, as of June 28, 2012, for a worldwide total
> of $301,022,520.

------
gergles
I find it humorous that someone claiming the throne of righteousness and
correctness about rising above the evil men dominating the world of video
games has reacted to criticism by posting a drawing branding men (and ONLY
men) as "trolls" (accompanied with a 'hss' sound effect, even! [1],) yet
somehow has the unmitigated temerity to complain about sexism. Plank in your
eye and all that.

[1]: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-
wome...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-
video-games/posts/247064)

~~~
AlexandrB
> criticism

There's a line between criticism and what happened to her. Are you seriously
comparing a cartoon mocking non-specific trolls* to sustained abusive material
(and doxing) aimed directly at an individual target?

*One of the trolls in that picture is most likely male, the others (smaller ones) are really non-descript and genderless. Are you sure this isn't just a case of you using "male" as the default gender for an androgynous picture?

~~~
true_religion
Hey, merely comparing two things does not mean anyone is implying they're
equivalent in weight.

------
gee_totes
I'd like to make a point of clarification with the article.

 _The woman, Californian blogger Anita Sarkeesian, had her Wikipedia page
locked after it was hacked repeatedly with profanity, lies and pornography_

You can't "hack" a Wikipedia page. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and the actions
described above are vandalism, not hacking.

------
Karunamon
Any call to end any kind of specific artistic expression is (rightly) going to
be met with resistance and derision. Whether that be sex, swearing, misogyny,
what have you.

Attacks are of course going too far, but not expecting _some_ form of
legitimate resistance is naive, at best. Combine that with the outrage the
internet tends to generate, and this behavior, while reprehensible, shouldn't
come as a surprise.

Morals never have, never do, and never will dictate art. The sooner people
recognize that the answer to something offending your sensibilities is to move
on from that particular thing, rather than writing screeds which will be
ignored by the perpetrators at best and heckled at worst, the happier we'll
all be.

*edit Guess that's what I get for not reading the link. Site's being websense'd, so I can't actually see it. Thanks for the editorialized, BS headline, submitter > : (

~~~
delehal
Has Sarkeesian made a "call to end any kind of specific artistic expression",
though? Last I heard, she just wants to make a documentary or two exploring
the treatment of women in video games.

If she's trying to highlight a disgusting trend of misogyny in gaming culture,
I would say she is doing an excellent job.

~~~
ShawnBird
It will probably just end up like her last Tropes vs Women series where she
banned all movies and television and forcibly castrated every male director
and screenwriter. How do we keep letting her get away with this stuff? /s

------
stfu
Is her cause any different from those, who want to portrait video games as
glorify violence and concluding therefore that they makes grownups more
violent?

Sure, she wants to just "research" it, but by the position taking in the
proposal the outcome seems already quite "expectable".

~~~
kitsune_
Her cause is different because her documentary wants to explore stereotypes of
female characters in popular video games. It's not about how this leads to ...
whatever you think she claims this to leads to.

The outcome of her exploration is 'expectable' because it's self-evident. I'm
an avid gamer. To put it mildly, in comparison to video games, Isaac Asimov's
portrayal of female characters had more depth, grace and truth in them.

Considering how abysmal Asimov was in this matter...

------
ThomPete
This is one of those situations where one should be very careful with
concluding anything.

As I read and understood it the misogyny in effect is for instance female
players being sent pictures of mens penises. Not that different from what we
know from the chat roulette experiment.

Now that is obviously bad style but it's definitely not something that only
exist in games and media and thus treating it as if it's something specific to
media or games is probably what created the outcry (not defending it just
explaining it). Try and go to a disco and see the hot ladies being hit on from
all sides.

In some countries they suppress this behavior by forcing the women to wear
vails so no one can see them and stoning them to death for adultery.

Whether receiving "dick shots" is the other side of men and woman having equal
rights I am not sure, but calling an end to misogony is like calling and end
men.

I wish her luck.

~~~
chc
I'm a man and somehow I manage not to send women photographs of my member. So
no, it is not like calling for an end to men. If all the men you know are like
that, you need to meet some better men.

~~~
ThomPete
Do you know this expression?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalization>

------
tokenizer
Well personally I'm disappointed at you internet. You should be getting mad at
things that make sense, not someone who wants to educate people and make a
documentary...

------
newobj
As of right now (an hour after the story was submitted), there is not a single
top level comment here sympathetic to the woman in question. Interesting.

~~~
tikhonj
I don't think this is necessarily a reflection of HN's biases.

Rather, there is simply little new to be said about this in a vacuum: yes,
there is a problem with sexism and yes, the reaction to her project is
disgusting (regardless of your stance on the issue) but all that is clear from
the article. What more to say about it? I suppose people could offer sympathy
--certainly a nice gesture--but not with much substance. Since she probably
does not read HN, those types comments would not be very useful at all.

So most of the people agreeing with the article do not really have a good
reason to post at the top level. On the other hand, they have plenty of reason
to respond to other people. So the sympathetic posts are all framed as
responses to others' comments largely because there isn't much to respond to
in the article.

~~~
kmfrk
It follows the trend of other Hacker News threads. Other threads on SRS/reddit
have gone the same way.

------
cpearce
Since we're in the mood to call an end to unrealistic portrayals of people's
fantasies, I think it's about time we demanded an end to romance novels.

------
revelation
Her project is funded at 2600%. Why bother with internet trolls? They
certainly won't go away because you appeal to them with facts or pleas. The
only response is to ignore them.

~~~
papsosouid
The trolls are why it was funded to 2600%. She didn't ignore them, she didn't
delete their posts. She used them to drum up publicity and sympathy. She
doesn't want to ignore them, they are her best ally. That's why the "after
4chan stopped trolling her, she got some people to keep reposting the troll
comments anyways" conspiracy theory is so popular.

~~~
king_jester
Are you seriously suggesting that someone who is the target of a campaign of
harassment is "using" the aggressors as a way to boost their visibility? The
reason why this project blew up is because other people saw what was happening
and decided to donate to the Kickstarter project.

Further, these people are not anyone's ally, least of all the person who is
being attacked. You are very deliberately saying that she deserves what she
gets and that it is her fault that she is being attacked and doxed. This is
100% victim blaming and you yourself are not only siding with the mysoginistic
aggressors, but being one.

~~~
papsosouid
>Are you seriously suggesting that someone who is the target of a campaign of
harassment is "using" the aggressors as a way to boost their visibility?

Yes. And you agree in your next sentence, the reason it blew up is because of
all the trolling.

>You are very deliberately saying that she deserves what she gets and that it
is her fault that she is being attacked and doxed.

I said nothing of the sort, what on earth are you talking about? I said she
doesn't ignore the trolls as the parent poster suggested, because the trolls
are how she got so over funded, and how she is trying to further this event
into a career. How exactly is "she is being smart and taking advantage of the
trolls, so it is not in her best interests to ignore them" blaming her for
being attacked? Glad you can tell I hate women from your imagined version of
me saying things that don't even vaguely resemble anything I said though.

~~~
kstenerud
What proof do you have to support your claims that she's milking this?

~~~
papsosouid
The fact that she approaches media outlets with the story? The fact that her
funding didn't happen until she did this? The fact that she didn't delete the
comments, or ignore the comments, but rather focused all of her efforts on
talking about those comments? Even to the exclusion of talking about the
actual project itself that she was trying to get funded.

Why do you seem to think it is some kind of sinister plot? If you were trying
to get funding, and someone threw a golden opportunity to generate a ton more
publicity and exposure into your lap, wouldn't you take advantage of it?

~~~
kstenerud
The question is: Why do YOU think it's some kind of plot?

If someone who is embarking on a project to expose and discuss misogyny
suddenly finds themselves on the receiving end of vicious misogynous attacks,
would it not make sense to bring that to the fore? After all, the sheer
viciousness of the attacks only serves to prove that misogyny is alive and
well, and most importantly, damaging.

Bringing inconvenient truths to light goes to the very heart of journalism.

~~~
papsosouid
>would it not make sense to bring that to the fore

My entire post was exactly that, that it _does_ makes sense. Again, why do you
think this is something sinister?

~~~
kstenerud
I hadn't noticed your other trolling comments in this thread. I won't waste
any more time on you.

------
r7000
She was interviewed on CBC radio recently:
<http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/The+Current/ID/2252831223/>

The piece has a lot more details plus interviews with women working in the
gaming industry.

------
krsunny
Women are portrayed in video games the same way and for the same reasons they
are portrayed on TV and in magazines. This is ridiculous.

~~~
Kell
So nothing should change ? And when asking to change how women are represented
in TV ... what if they say : "Hey, women are portrayed in TV the same way and
for the same reasons they are portrayed on video games and in magazines. This
is ridiculous."

Your argument, is a fallacy.

~~~
krsunny
Well, they didn't say that, you did.

~~~
sebtoast
You can imply something without saying it directly.

------
stephth
How did this story already get buried to the second page of HN, when there are
half a dozen of stories with roughly the same age and votes in the first half
of the first page? I can even see a 4h older post with the exact same number
of votes, still in the first page. I don't like to be cynical but it's hard
not to notice the exceptionally angry comments against this topic and the
oddly low position of this thread.

~~~
jellicle
If I may be permitted:

If you try to talk about misogyny on a forum that is 98% male, you're going to
have a bad time.

~~~
kmfrk
It's a Hacker News things. There are forums that fortunately are perfectly
able to have a level-headed discussion about this.

You need to narrow it down to more than "a forum that is 98% male" - but I'll
grant you that the sample size is really, really small.

------
arrakeen
full disclosure: i'm a kickstarter backer of this project, however...

the article title is exaggerated linkbait: Sarkeesian's project is a
sociological exploration of the representation of women in video games, NOT a
call to end videogame misogyny. while i'm sure that she'd like 'end video game
misogyny', that's not the immediate point of this project

------
papsosouid
Why is this suddenly a big deal now? These "punch random annoying celebrity X"
flash games have been around since the 90s. I don't see Justin Bieber
desperately trying to drum up more media attention even though a dozen people
have made the same game out of his face. But of course, it is a horrible crime
to do it to a "feminist", that's totally different right?

Also, it is sad and ironic that losttrap (the guy who made the game) has
gotten just as much abuse from the feminists as Anita got in the first place.
They thought it was terrible when it happened to Anita, but are perfectly
happy to do the same thing themselves. It is especially bad to see how much of
their abuse has focused on his sexuality.

~~~
stephth
_Why is this suddenly a big deal now?_

What do you mean it's a "big deal"? Is it a "big deal" because people are
talking about it? Are you not cool with that?

Someone is doing a cultural study and is getting attacked for it. Some of us
think that's worthy of our attention.

You've written 11% of the comments of this thread (13 comments out of 117),
and they are mostly angry/poisonous. If you don't agree that this has
importance, why don't you move somewhere else? You'd do a favor to this thread
and trust me, yourself.

~~~
papsosouid
Yes, in this context a "big deal" refers to media coverage of a non-event. Are
you not cool with that?

There is no cultural study involved here, someone is making a series of videos
where she reads tvtropes pages. You are correct, she was attacked for it, but
that's not what this article is about. This is about the "game" that was made
of hitting her, which was not in response to her making videos, but rather a
response to her (quite successful) attempts to portray everyone critical of
her as a lunatic. The "if I am going to get accused of being crazy, I am going
to act like" approach. Not a very effective approach I don't think, but
characterizing it as an attack on her for doing a study is inaccurate.

None of my comments are angry or poisonous, one is frustrated with the
strawman repeating troll. While you are counting and categorizing my comments
in this thread, perhaps you noticed how many are responses to people directly
asking me questions? If you want me to post less, why did you also directly
ask me questions? Do you not want me to answer them?

I'm not sure why you are so upset that I don't share your opinion on
something, so much so that you would like me to just go away so you aren't
inconvenienced by my presence. But your arrogance and condescension is very
impressive, I am pleased to know that you have my best interests at heart and
know what is best for me. I will be sure to refrain from sharing my opinion in
the future before consulting you on its correctness.

~~~
stephth
_media coverage of a non-event_

 _There is no cultural study involved here, someone is making a series of
videos where she reads tvtropes pages._

That's what I meant. You clearly don't care about this study (yes, it's a
cultural study) or about its author.

Beats me how someone who doesn't care about something can be so invested on
it, and I usually don't try to give advice to strangers, thing is, I'm tired
of seeing people like you hijacking debates about misogyny, by completely
missing the point from the top of a pedestal of "I'm beyond all this" yet
injecting negativity in the discussion with a disproportionate amount of
energy.

Maybe I'm projecting a way too big and way too ugly pattern on you, which
might be unfair. But then, tough luck man. You're all over this thread (17
comments, you must be going for the record) basically pounding the same key.

 _If you want me to post less, why did you also directly ask me questions?_

You might find it liberating to not reply to every reply, even if they contain
critiques and/or question marks.

~~~
papsosouid
>Beats me how someone who doesn't care about something can be so invested on
it

Why do you think that because I don't find her as valuable as you do, that I
have no interest in the reaction to the kickstarter, and the reaction to the
"game" this article was about?

>Maybe I'm projecting a way too big and way too ugly pattern on you

It is interesting that you are aware of it, yet continue to do it. And again,
hypocritically trying to shame me into silence because you don't like my
opinion, while also being "all over this thread" saying the same thing. Oh no!
Contrary opinions! Save me!

>You might find it liberating to not reply to every reply, even if they
contain critiques and/or question marks.

I don't find conversation to be stressful or otherwise detrimental to my well
being. It is actually quite a common phenomenon, and really nothing to be
concerned about.

------
vasco
I find it interesting that a feminist would rather invest her time studying
social phenomenons involving videogames and legos in detriment of issues such
as women being forced to marry their rapists or even killed because of them.
Additionally, I'm not sure why she needs backing for this project. She clearly
has a high quality camera and the means to produce high quality video footage,
as presented in the kickstarter page.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
Don't hold her up to a standard that even you can't live up to. I don't agree
with a lot of her bullshit but she's onto something that needs to be talked
about and discussed. Rather than asking "why doens't she do X instead of Y, Y
is so much more important". Why don't YOU do X or Y? If we stand for internet
freedom why aren't we all protesting or campaigning or working on an alliance
instead of browing HN all day?

