He’s actually a troll, as in, do not feed.
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Y’know, I bet Ann Coulter and Condi Rice are on the receiving ends of much worse threats on a regular basis. Does this mean that politics is riddled with misogynistic violence and that this violence reflects a real-world misogyny rampant within the world of politics? Or do we not talk about them because people here are much less likely to agree with anything they say?
The only threat Condi Rice should face is that of going to prison for war crimes.
Ann Coulter should just be put back under her bridge.
Nobody should be subject to any of these kinds of threats.
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I’d actually go so far as to say that her claims are not what’s important at all because the response to her arguments are asymmetrical to the claim, its all about the internalized rage of the responder. Anita is just conveniently there, it could be any woman really and, frequently, it is.
Its not like they would think better of her if she was a submissive woman who claimed that gaming doesn’t need to change, they wouldn’t think more of her because at the end of the day, she’s still a woman.
The hate, the misogyny, comes first, the reasons to “hate on her” are the rationalization of that misogyny. To claim she did anything to enrage them or trigger their response is to believe that misogyny has at its core an element of truth, that its just a disproportionate response to a reasonable disagreement.
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Wow, I was more or less with you till there.
This discussion is probably useless in finding any guilty parties, both for the problem at large, or for this specific incident. I’d hope one or more law enforcement agencies are tasked with that responsibility. I don’t think it apathy to express that both myself and this discussion have no real place in that effort.
As to the larger problem well, it’s problematic to even discuss it in this context, for the reasons noted in other conversation threads, in one spot even by myself, above.
I personally don’t actually agree with specific points Ms Sarkeesian makes, nor do I think she’s taking a strategically useful direction with her videos to achieve what may well be a commendable goal. But, to have a discussion of that nature, when she is facing, and in a thread prompted by, death threats… Well, one would have to be immensely tone deaf to get into that sort of criticism at this particular juncture.
As noted by several people, myself included, it’s simply not a useful moment to have this discussion, because you’re not going to get a full, spirited, and honest discussion.
That said, perhaps you might consider that you might need to reduce ALL forms of a thing in order to reduce the one you yourself care about? By discounting these other arguments you’re “not really interested in”, you do your own cause a disservice. In essence, Reduce Hate, not just Reduce Hate toward women. The latter will certainly occur with the former, but, not necessarily vice versa.
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IMO, Anita Sarkeesian’s videos wildly distort many of the games she highlights.
The people who would threaten or harass her are beyond the pale. We can agree or disagree with Sarkeesian. Her harassers are outside of the conversation altogether, by their choice, and not worth listening to.
From personal experience with trolls who have harassed me in real life (one who was female), police still don’t take this stuff seriously. Hopefully, that’s different wherever she lives and people who do this sort of thing will be dealt with appropriately.
OTOH, it’s a bit rich to imply here that this episode makes her point about games and gamers given this website’s generally positive coverage over the years of one of the main focal points of her harassment.
After all only idiot noobs from Fox are concerned about anonymous harassment and bullying: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/04/07/fox-news-discovers-4.html
And the first rule of bully club, apparently, is you just don’t mess with /B/: http://boingboing.net/2010/07/16/mad-mustachioed-dad.html
But, hey, that was just some 11yo and her whacked out dad. Presumably they weren’t being cyberbullied as a class which presumably makes all the difference.
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I would suggest the problem is misogyny.
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Given the hypothetical of disagreeing with a progressive movement which is relatively powerless compared to the dominant, for want of a better word, paradigm, there are a couple points that come to my mind:
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It’s a minefield and it’s not fair to you that all ideas might miss getting due consideration, that you are sometimes lumped in with the oppressors, or that your attempts at jokes are taken without irony. There are degrees of unfairness, though, and that’s where people get fatigued with every aspect of the relentless shitbaggery from the griefers who enjoy making sport with the powerless. Fatigue is not fair. It’s a human limitation and must be factored into political discussion.
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To successfully present a third (or fourth, etc.) point of view without being sorted in binary fashion, it’s important to find a forum where the griefers aren’t equal, where people’s attempts at complicated ideas aren’t completely squashed by anti-intellectual bullying (or in a recent case elsewhere on BoingBoing, a recapitualtion of anti-intellectual Stockholm Syndrome). Unfortunately, that doesn’t describe the dominant discussion sites, and 4chan is the Ur-dumbass site, so there’s always some culture shock and moderation needed when a place like BBBBS gets… visitors.
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I haven’t seen any reports that Ann Coulter was forced to abandon her home because of death threats, have you?
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Yeah, no.
edit: reality is not just about shit, but filtering shit. Basic, intrinsic reality. Check your eyesight.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that was a thing. Most educators and parents I know certainly don’t think that, which makes it seem like you are stretching for a straw man argument.
The general consensus is that school administrators would love to see a more equitable balance in the gender balance among grade school teachers, but social pressures push men away from that career path (cf “male nurse” jokes) while simultaneously encouraging woman to take these jobs at a higher than average rate (and for less pay, too).
This isn’t a “people are scared of pedo-teachers” thing; it’s totally a systemic and entrenched set of social and cultural values which forces people into certain pre-identified roles. You know, like sexism!
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[quote=“brian_carnell, post:49, topic:39970, full:true”]I haven’t seen any reports that Ann Coulter was forced to abandon her home because of death threats, have you?[/quote]That suggests that she does not take such threats sufficiently seriously and/or that she has paid for security services adequate to mitigate any such threats. I very much doubt it means that the threats are any less severe.
Well, I know it’s something I’ve heard, (And no, neither teaching nor nursing are my profession, so, I don’t speak from personal experience on either, and therefore may be wrong about the particulars) but, ultimately, you make the same point with different motivations. It boils down to precisely the same thing, so, quibbling over the exact details of the motivations is kinda pointless.
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“Credible” is not the same as “certain” or even “highly likely”. Sure there is a chance the person won’t try to make good on the threats. It may even be a 90% chance they won’t do anything. You want to stay home when there’s a 10% chance someone who demonstrably knows the address will go there and try to kill you?
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His example also fails because the very reason men are highly suspect in high school, is because they’re doubly empowered, once by the authoritarian position, and subsequently by the male-empowerment.
It’s just a set of blinders that just chase ghost after ghost.
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Not to turn this into another rant about Fascism, but if you ever wanted to rebuild the SA, that’s one place you’d start.
I would define credible in these circumstances, as they pertain to the internet, that they contain knowledge about location.
So some twitter person yelling a threat is meaningless.
Some twitter person yelling a threat that contains a phone number and house address is credible.
Whether it’s psychologically actionable by the person making the threat is a needles masturbatory question and should be ignored. We have to assume that on the internet, there’s a rule 35: If something can be trolled for lulz, it will be.
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That’s a load of close-minded crap. All muslims and misogynists are not terrorists. Just because someone has racist views does not suddenly make them the seed of Hitler. The misogynists are the ones that need to be having a dialog to see the error of their ways. The terrorists need to be thrown into jail.
Right? I think you’re misreading that statement.
My point is that the actions we’re observing largely stem from the trolls, but if we treat the trolls as if they have the specific idealogue of the mysoginists, we’re going to create a anti-mysoginist group, who will also have enough power to harness the trolls.
This creates a situation where the trolls grow in number, and like moths, chase the flames. And we’re always in danger in thinking that the trolls have the specific belief of any ‘flame’ they’re attracted to.
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Yeah, the misogyny obviously already exists - it’s not like the misogyny is somehow being generated specifically as a response to her. Any woman with any opinions about video games is automatically a target to one degree or another, but any woman who criticizes - even implicitly - the status quo in gaming is a special target. The irony here is simply that they fundamentally prove her point by the very nature of the response, but yes, the response ultimately isn’t actually even saying “I’m right and you’re wrong,” but simply, “I’m angry at you for bringing this issue up.”
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