Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah campus appearance after threats of a "Montreal-style massacre"

at this point i’m not sure it is possible to malign whatever passes for “gamergate.”

i understand that it’s possible to defend points of view one might find repugnant but, really, if you want to disavow threats of violence it’s time to disavow the whole “#gg” scene and find a new springboard for discussing whatever is left when you strip away the misogyny and threats of violence.

8 Likes

I don’t always get it either, but it’s their sandbox. They can enforce whatever rules they want.

Yes, these poor people are having their freedom to issue rape & death threats abrogated by the mean ol’ feminists. How will democracy survive?

14 Likes

I’m sorry, where exactly has this happened?

9 Likes

OK. I am not an expert on this, but what exactly do you mean? According to Wikipedia, “Gamergate” is a controversy, and controversies have people on both sides. The controversy obviously exists. I am not sure that I fully understand your point.

According to Wikipedia: “Gamergate is a controversy in video game culture which began in August 2014. It concerns ingrained issues of sexism and misogyny in the gaming community, as well as journalistic ethics in the online gaming press, particularly conflicts of interest between video game journalists and developers.”

Let’s look at these individually:

Sexism and Misogyny
Perhaps. IMHO: sexism, yes. Misogyny: perhaps not.
I remember playing Duke Nukem 3d. Kill the bad guys. Walk up to strippers and shake a fist full of dollars at them. Yes, this is very sexist. I am also a casual RPG fan, and it is not uncommon to male fighters shown with full-body armor, but females only get a metal bikini. This is also very sexist. But, at the same time, this is similar to the kinds of sexism that you find in comic books and movies. Not excusing it, but just pointing out that it is pervasive. To single out gaming in this regard seems phony.

As to choice of costume, some of this is also perpetuated and/or exploited by women themselves – not a lot of women, but some. You only have to look at the on-stage antics and costume choices for people like: Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, and many others.

Video games often portray women as being weak and needing rescuing (Princess Peach). There is some truth in this, as evidenced by the fact that my wife sometimes need me to be the chief “spider squisher” in the house.

Add these ingredients to the fact that the majority of people who will drop $40 or more on a game are male, and you have the ingredients to make a sexism-fueled market.

Now, as to “misogyny,” I guess that is how you define it. Mario always wanted to RESCUE Princess Peach, and he never slapped her around afterwards. I have not actually seen much real, intentional misogyny in the games that I have played. Maybe some of the actual misogyny in real life over this controversy comes from guys thinking “This is a guy’s club, so I don’t want some woman putting flowered wallpaper up and tearing down the centerfolds.” I can also see how somebody could have this point of view. If a guy wants to see the female warrior wear little clothes, I guess that really does not hurt anybody. Video games are art, not real life. I do not recall anybody trying to get Vargas to change his art.

Journalistic Ethics
I could maybe also see a point here. If there IS a relationship between a reviewer and the item being reviewed, then it needs to be clearly disclosed. On the other hand, who counts as a “Journalist?” My wife runs a web-based business, and she is writing a book. Does this mean that I am not allowed to say that my wife’s business is awesome or that her book is quite good? I guess it depends on how you position yourself. I guess if you claim to be an impartial journalist, you had better be. But every web site and magazine out there needs advertisers. Do you run the bad review and risk pissing off an advertiser? This is an age-old discussion that has been around for decades, and is not even limited to gaming.

Summary? Hell, I don’t know. I was just rambling.

@ghostly1 have you been involved with the feminist movement? I have. I’ve dated, in a serious fashion, some feminist activists.

I operate a shop in a big university district of Chicago. I’ve seen their protests and demands.

If GamerGate’s few threateners of violence are bad, then I seem feminism’s massive demands of social justice via the law as worse.

Attacking one individual is evil.

Attacking all individuals’ basic freedom is evil.

Evil is evil, regardless of which side is spreading the seeds of it.

3 Likes

So… your justification that “folks like Anita want to use the threat of law to shut up misogynists and racists” is “she’s a feminist and feminists are bad! I know! I’ve dated some!”

You don’t have any specific examples of her wanting to use the threat of law to shut up misogynists and racists personally?

Let’s put this another way. “Folks like abdada want to rape and murder Anita just because she pointed out some continually used tropes in video games were sexist.”

After all, you’re a man, and there are certainly men who want to do that. Therefore, folks like you want to do that.

Some specific examples would help here, too, to at least be clear on what exactly you feel is so onerous. I might even agree with you on some of them. I might think you’re a tool who is using “muh freedoms” as an excuse to defend an evil system. If you’re brave enough to give examples, we might find out. If you’re just going to be vague and argue that some of them somewhere may be advocating things that are evil, well, you really haven’t said anything useful at all.

16 Likes

Sexism is in the game, misogyny is how the game came to be that way and how a preponderance of games marginalize women, objectifying them in-game, ignoring them as a market, and, nowadays, in the manner in which other users directly treat women online in-game & in the industry in any role.

BTW people tend to use the dictionary definition of misogyny. Start here Misogyny - Wikipedia then re-read your post or something.

5 Likes

I think some people have trouble dealing with the real world.

In an imaginary world, Nazis were authoritarian boors. In the real world, they orchestrated a deliberate, systematic, and industrialized slaughter of other human beings.

In an imaginary world, death is meaningful to the storyline. In the real world, death is final.

In an imaginary world, death threats are a strategy with no real world consequenses, played as idly as a trump card. In the real world, real death is involved, as is prison time.

6 Likes

This probably goes a little bit beyond my knowledge of how law enforcement works, but it seems like its down to the discretion of the authorities involved. But it also seems like there is a tendency to back the victim. So if personal info, especially addresses, are included it becomes credible. Not necessarily because the person making the threat with that info is likely to follow through, but because the publication of that information makes it more possible that anyone vocal or not could succeed in an attack. Especially with kids their seems to be a tendency to assume any threat is credible.

I do know that depending on the laws in a given place there can be actual legal definitions (or guidelines more like) of credibility. That only affects the ability to press charges over a given threat/harassment. It doesn’t dictate things like protective details, or moving a victim etc. So there’s this weird tension between what’s credible enough to prosecute and what’s credible enough to act on.

I don’t recall her threatening to kill anyone. Telling someone to shut the fuck up and quit being an asshole is very much covered by free speech, regardless of whether you’re right or wrong. The people subjected to that sill have the freedom to ignore it, and other people have the freedom to write them off as assholes. If you honestly don’t see a huge, night and day difference in kind rather than degree between that and threatening someone with violence, then you are honestly beyond redemption, and all I can say is fuck you.

16 Likes

Before you know it you won’t remember how many threads deep you are, and you’ll be on the run from the law trying to find a way back to your kids and your only chance will be to go two threads deeper in the shady sub-thread criminal underworld and you’ll be Leonardo DeCaprio. Inception. I’m referencing Inception.

7 Likes

This is the biggest BoingBoing discussion I’ve seen in years. I hope throwing a few facts in here doesn’t poison it.

I’m on the IT security staff at USU.

We knew there would be threats when this speaker was scheduled.

There were multiple threats. They seem independent of each other. Each had different styles and demands. Some claimed to be from local people, but they got local facts wrong. The threats didn’t seem credible to me. But, it wasn’t my ass on the line.

The campus police coordinated with the State and the Feds. There was an amazing amount of resources brought to bear in a very short period of time. The various authorities agreed the threats weren’t credible. But they prepared to act if anything happened. I was going to go over and watch the presentation. It would have been fun to watch a room full of undercover cops and feds receive a lecture on sexism.

Unfortunately Sarkeesian chose to cancel. We were all willing to risk it. Perhaps she wasn’t willing to be responsible if something went wrong.

The President of USU issued a statement. It ended with:

When our law enforcement personnel spoke about security measures, she was concerned that state law prevented the university from keeping people with legal concealed firearm permits from entering the event, and chose to cancel. As a Utah public institution, we follow state law. The Utah law provides that people who legally possess a concealed firearm permit are allowed to carry a firearm on public property, like the USU campus.

We are disappointed that students and other community members did not benefit from her presentation. While we will always prioritize the safety of our community, no threat changes Utah State University’s unwavering advocacy of academic freedom and free speech rights of everyone.

I can understand she might have felt a little skittish around people carrying guns. And the ratio of guns to people at this event would have been close to 1. We are all used to it, but we have had years.

15 Likes

This bit bothers me. The whole campus is public property? So anyone can roam into lectures or staff offices? If they can stop that, they can stop unauthorised people coming into a talk given by an outsider.

5 Likes

A lot of people seem to be waving off such threats, as if she’s somehow not supposed to be concerned by this sort of thing. As if this is just the sort of casual harassment that all women should just get used to, just endure, and stop complaining. The video games she’s most critical of, maintain exactly that sort of attitude toward personal safety, and clearly, whoever emailed that note must think this is some kind of game.

What’s most confusing to me about this Gamergate bruhaha, is the idea that there exists some kind of identity around videogaming? When did that become a thing? It’s kind of like saying that the people who watch TV are all part of a single group, who have interests and responsibilities peculiar to that happy little family. (maybe if you had to build your own TV, but seriously?)

Abortion clinic bombing seem to have been in decline, (thank you FBI for never using your anti-terror laws to defend us from that!) Now it appears that basement dwelling teenagers are willing to step up to bat.

I think this is the fallout from Sandy Hook. If ever there was a moment to make some real improvements in public safety, that was it. And some rich fuckers decided it was not to be, so the terrorists win yet again. My american dream is over, it’s time to wake up.

5 Likes

When one of the threats promises an École Polytechnique-style “event”, she was probably wise to cancel. It is one thing when one is the target oneself - one can then weigh the odds. When everyone else is a target…

7 Likes

21 Likes

[quote=“CaptainPedge, post:108, topic:43057”]
This bit bothers me. The whole campus is public property? So anyone can roam into lectures or staff offices? [/quote]

Yah. That is pretty much true. It helps that we are in an isolated mountain valley. So, it’s a smaller community than you would get in LA or Dallas. But, I don’t think we are all that different from other universities. I have checked in with my peers at a couple universities. The trouble is always finding IT Security’s hellhole. There are almost never any barriers to access.

Also in my experience, you can attend a USU class for a long time without being kicked out for not paying tuition. If you praise the professor, you can make it to Mid-Terms.

3 Likes

I understand Ms. Sarkeesian’s reluctance to speak in that venue. I wish she didn’t have to deal with the threats because she does important work. In a perfect world she would give the talk. Morris Dees talks in public, and he has had some very bad people come after him over the years, buts its also my understanding that he has a praetorian guard level executive protection team looking out for him.

1 Like

I don’t think anyone is saying that. If anything the are disappointed she didn’t stand up and complain about it.