Anita Sarkeesian on women's bodies as prizes in video games

you’re reasonable responses are dreeeaaaammmyy

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I know,right? This needs to be nipped in the bud.

Reasonable and well thought out discussion will NOT be tolerated on my internet.

That, my friend, is unabashed bullshit. And proves that you haven’t engaged with her work.

SUCH a great read!! :smiley:

Also, obligatory:

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Thank. You. (Heads over to Blowup Thread)

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That is problem with people, not a game itself. The game is brutal, indeed, and provides you with some degree of freedom to do shit to virtual human beings. The gamers that did the videos are being sexist here. Of course if game did not allow this they would not be able to do.
Btw. “strippers” prefer to be called"exotic dancers", if you mind.

It works this way with any subject you take. Her work is supposed to be kind of academic analysis; as recipient of her analysis I have to assume her to be objective within her thesis and provided examples to be objective too; She is the one to do the research, She is the one to have resources, time, etc. That is why we relay on her professional attempt to subject, on her findings.
When I look at her findings, I am limited only to the examples I have been able to deal with myself. This is true to other recipients of her research - more or less, the subset of our personal experience with the subject will be limited. And this is problematic… because when she is found to loose objectiveness on examples, that people are familiar with, they will have doubts on validity of entire research and her honesty - as it seems that she might be stretching the research to fit her purpose. - which causes damage to the research itself.

The logic is simple: how much can you trust the analysis if the researcher fails you in the part you are familiar with?

Sarkeesian seems to, quite often, focus on reaching audience and letting the quality of her research to slip a bit - it is easier to get echo from how loud you shout rather than how valid, what you shout, is - specially when you have biased audience (heh, like Fox News.)

Oh, do go on! How dare she reach a wide audience and not meet your own personal stringent “objective” criteria!

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It is nice you summarize quality of your post with appropriate meme. There is no better one to put under what you have written.

And there is no my “objective”, she has chosen the subject, that is her objective. And no it is not enough to “reach wide audience”. Fox News reaches wide audience with it’s crap and what is the point?

I don’t want to dogpile. I really don’t. Anita isn’t shouting, and her points are valid.

If we are concerned about the quality or rigor of her research, then as good peer researchers lets critique her conclusions specifically as opposed in the abstract.

(I have no problems with her methods or conclusions, they seem pretty ‘water is wet’)

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Yes, indeed, her conclusions are quite valid and true for most of cases. It is just that not all of examples are valid for conclusions.

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I’ll take a crack at this. We’re all objectified. My boss hires me for my coding ability, not as a person. I hire a carpenter not as a person, but as a collection of skills. Most of the time, in commercial dealings, we don’t want to deal with a whole person, but as an object that provides whatever service we desire. (That doesn’t preclude being polite, mind you.)

However, the service that pornography provides is also part of most personal relationships. The objectification that occurs in pornography inevitably carries forward not just how we treat other commercial transactions, but also how we treat those that we interact with on a personal level. As such, I “celebrate” those providing such services about as much as I celebrate someone earning a living selling cigarettes. Both earn a living, but do some harm to society at large, even if the commercial transaction is all voluntary.

And no, I don’t think banning is a good idea. Prohibition has its costs. However, social opprobrium has its uses. I’d have no problem with many of these games being treated the same way lighter pornography was treated 20 years ago - i.e. with a vague aura of shame about it. You want your dose of objectifying women in a game? Sure, but let’s be clear that the rest of the world sees it as vaguely pathetic.

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You are literally comparing Sarkeesian to Fox News. That is the definition of crap.

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The same applies to hotel work. People think they can just waltz in off the street and expect room and board and friendly hosts in exchange for money, when normally you would have to have an existing relationship with someone to get that. It can also lead to unrealistic expectations, as some guests are rude and still expect full service by polite people.

While there are definite problems with pornography, it is possible to recognise that someone is providing a service and that they are also much more than that service. Anita seems to have some issues on this point as she refers to sex workers as “prostituted women” and equates “sex sells” with “sexism sells”. These are often indistinguishable, but not necessarily. Sometimes focusing on tropes can ignore nuances in real life or in the portrayals themselves.

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No I did not “literally” compared (in post you replay to) her to Fox News as “literally” means in words, exactly which I did not. What I did is: I gave you example of when reaching audience does not prove your argumentation to be valid. My sentence lacks clear induction, you have to employ one yourself but I think this removes “literally” from this equation.

I think it is old enough, you know, technology speed everything up lately. Games are already reaching quality of high budget movies. They are less "toys’ then they used to be, somehow they become important thing for some people (I can not believe I have written this…), and I think they start to have some impact on society (the entire discussion seems to prove this). We should have enough of specimen already to get started with this.

Oooooooooooooooooh. So you’re just saying that reaching a popular audience is reason enough to discount her arguments. That’s so much better.

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First of all I did not discount all of her arguments I have just pointed out that some of them are not valid or stretched. And second:

Oh no, that is what you are saying. So you do admit that Fox News is “right” at all, they just reach their popular audience with their argumentation, because this is what they do; following your claim: they are popular among some blokes which makes their argumentation valid (its sarcasm, they’re morons.) Having followers does not mean you are infallibly right on a subject.
Now you are, implicitly, comparing her to Fox News.

That seems odd. Taken to the extreme it would be like refusing help from a fire-fighter or an ambulance worker because they get paid for what they do.

I think some of it is resentment of the fact that there is a significant part of the market that doesn’t need their participation. If “real games” weren’t important to women, the campaign should have died pretty quickly.

See, here’s where I disagree, because when I say rigor, I’m keeping in mind there are degrees of rigor. I’m not talking about multiple graphs and charts and complex statistical calculations. I’m thinking of Mythbusters and their level of rigor, which likely wouldn’t always pass a lot of peer review, but does an excellent job of making its points. Bear in mind, I’m not talking about Mythbusters’ style but strictly the level of rigor involved. I think it works fine with the format, and could be seamlessly integrated into the style.

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You are right, I have not searched forums on that; I personally used to know only one girl with such profession and this is how she wanted to be called, and that might be her personal thing. I will not insist on that.