Death threats drive Anita Sarkeesian from her home

Holy shit, 130+ posts in a thread about a person being harassed. That’s pretty grotesque. I figure the words “Anita Sarkeesian” are imbued with some kind of magical power that turns normal people into assholes.

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That’s what I tell the United States of America about bombing, torturing, shooting, raping, and chemically assaulting brown people in oil-strategic counties!

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Well, fair enough. Stand tall and proud amidst the gamers screaming rape threats. I have a feeling that you (and the others who nitpick her videos) are looking for minor specifics you can rebut so you can dismiss the larger points outright, which is depressing.

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Well, to be fair, we don’t do that to convince them they’re right, we do it to get their stuff.

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Geez is it really kosher to just lump everyone who disagrees with her into the rapist camp? What’s next? All Germans are Hitler?

For someone who ostensibly seeks to represent the enlightened faction, your sentiments thus far have been strange and benighted.

Accuracy counts. How valid is the whole when the component parts are all flawed, compromised lies?

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She is histrionic in her overstated, exaggerated and inaccurate claims.

And if you would have included the rest of the quote, I explain clearly exactly why she may be hated on grounds other than the fact that she’s a woman or a feminist and that all of her detractors are necessarily irrational chauvinists:

What about telling your daughter not to date any guys that hate their fathers as well ? Research done within psychology/social work/sociology about the roots of domestic violence strongly suggest that boys who have witnessed their father abuse their mother more often become abusers as adults themselves v.s. girls who witnessed their mother being victimized who often date abusERS.

Much late victorian - mid 20th century psychology/psychiatry placed the blame on any and all disorders as being the fault of the mother, or the hysteria of the female patient while being dismissive of the effects of things like incest, sexual assault and physical assault which were more commonly done by a male perpetrator within the home. Freud started out with a strong theory that the behaviour of the female “hysterics” he treated were the result of sexual and social trauma, as a result of the interviews he had done with these patients, and their treatment within the home. When Freud presented this theory in his early career he was relentlessly mocked and dismissed by his colleagues (all male) who preferred to not hear what their female patients had been telling them as well. Freud then instead cooked up convoluted theories to explain the effects of this trauma, which were well received by the same colleagues and he was then considered a genius.See: misogyny. So don’t you claim I am somehow dismissive of you, dude, and your pop psychology musings.

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Histrionic is a loaded term that is generally only applied to women. Check yourself, dude. Just because you don’t like HOW she is saying something does not invalidate what she is saying.

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I have said twice now that the selective service laws should be eliminated:

So quit erecting the strawman that I think unenforced laws never need to be eliminated.

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Yes, many posts refuting what she has said while ignoring serious threats of a sexual/violent nature made against her and her family because she talks about and analyzes…games.

So I guess the quibbling about dude’s perspectives on what is wrong with her series/statements//credentials/whatever that point out the problem - as she sees it - of widespread misogyny in games trumps the greater moral good of SEEING ACTUAL LIFE-THREATENING MISOGYNY HAPPENING TO A REAL WOMAN ! Because “misandry”, the draft, her “histrionic” manner of delivery, her perceived lack of credibility as a “real” gamer, the crowdfunding - whatever. Probably her astrological sign, diet and type of dental fillings make her acceptable to victimize, too, by some illogical gamer algebra.

Another shameful storm of comments on BB, again. It is sad to recognize that the enemy is within our ranks - not some kind of “other”, outside. Misogyny affects women - all women - and because a bunch of privileged dudes can’t see it, don’t want to see it, don’t want to hear about it, and certainly do not want to speak out against it to other dudes doesn’t make it NOT THERE.

Seriously, fuck this nitpickery. For a site that supports SCIENCE, technology, intelligence and counter culture I am mortified and ashamed to stumble upon such wretched and oblivious perspectives.

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Trolls don’t need citations. They just need to keep the conversation going.

Threats are not bad because they’re made by one gender against another. They’re bad because they’re threats.

Notch (creator of Minecraft) received death threats. He speculated they were from kids, but didn’t specify the gender of those who threatened him.

Robert Bowling (Call of Duty) received death threats that included threats against his family. One tweet said the person would sell his body to a necrophiliac rapist.

Fred Wester (Hearts of Iron) got threats including his home address.

Phil Fish (Fez) actually said “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking murder that guy.” and “I’m going to cold-blood fucking murder him. I’m gonna…FUCK THAT GUY! Seriously.” about his former partner on Fez. That’s quoted from Indie Game: The Movie.

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So those dudes were threatened as well. One threat included a threat about a necrophilic rapist. That would be a rape after he is dead(by Jimmy Saville ?). The threats made against Sarkeesian were very specific and gender based, including rape.

You can argue a threat is a threat is a threat and they are all bad threats. But - how many women do you know who have threatened to rape another woman ? Or women who have made threats because they are mad about a game ? Or the statistics concerning the percentage of women who do crimes like forcible confinement, homicide, arson, sexual assault ? The numbers aren’t 0% - but they sure aren’t anywhere near 50%.

Do you really think women were making these threats against (male) game creators ? Were these male creators chronic targets, who were critiquing an industry where there is no gender parity in creation or content ?

You can try to erase the aspect of gender but that doesn’t make it go away. You can act like YOU don’t see it - but it shows the rest of us that you aren’t looking. Like white people who don’t see racism.

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It was actually violent attacks against celebrities that prompted the creation of stalking laws. In 1982 actress Theresa Saldana was approached by a man who had been stalking her and was stabbed ten times in the chest. A bystander intervened, saving her life. She was hospitalized for four months.

In 1989 a man who had been stalking actress Rebecca Schaeffer for three years murdered her with a gunshot to the chest. The following year California passed the first stalking law in the United States. Saldana and others in the entertainment industry lobbied in its favor. Within three years every state had passed a stalking law but that hasn’t ended the danger; singer-songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was murdered by an obsessed fan in 1995.

If one wants to bring credibility into the conversation, the minimum standard is to inform oneself about the relevant history. Death threads are not a thing to dismiss lightly.

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I don’t know what the hell he’s on about with credentials. She’s got a masters in social and political thought from York University. Not that that’s a requirement to criticize media.

As for stolen content:

She clearly used that artwork without permission. I wouldn’t call it stolen, but that’s what the artist calls it. Whether that’s fair use as Anita claims is not for me to decide.

WTF?? Citation. What dictionary are you getting your information from? Check yourself because you are casting aspersions on someone you don’t know. dude.

As I say elsewhere, she is histrionic in her claims. They are overstated, exaggerated, imprecise, rambling, inaccurate and quite frequently just completely false. I would have little problem with a difference of MANNER of presentation.

IT IS THE CONTENT that is the problem and that does very well invalidate what she is saying.

Hysterical is, certainly. Not sure histrionic is.

Edit: there is this, of course…but I thought the word had a different root.

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By the way, Mark posted a story about Amazon’s new series, Hysteria.

That’s a whole lot of words signifying little if anything at all.

Nobody, as far as I can see, has claimed that death threats or threats of sexual violence is a good thing. You see anything different? I have denounced it personally if that makes a difference to you.

What more do you want us to say about that?

Hmm?

Honestly… what?

What more is there to say? What good would standing around in a forum talking about that ad nauseum do as it pertains to those threats? Would 150 responses saying “threat bad!” somehow scratch whatever itches you?

You drone on in politically correct platitudes without giving an ounce of thought to what you’re demanding.

Personally, I’m mortified that for a site that supports SCIENCE, technology, intelligence and counter culture, we seem to be breeding a culture that cannot tolerate criticism of a woman no matter how wrong she is… simply because she’s a woman. And to dare to utter such blasphemies gets you relegated to de facto chauvinit/rapist status.

We have a conversation here because we’re talking about the tangential, related issues about what makes her so radioactive. We have a conversation here because we’re talking about how it’s possible that she’s not hated just because she’s a woman and feminist - that detractors can and do have a point. We have a conversation here because not everyone who has a problem with her goes around making death threats. But apparently, you have a problem even with that. It’s the mere fact of a woman being criticized in any capacity whatsoever that gets your goat. That what passes for enlightenment these days?

You throw around words like “wretched” and “oblivious” but in dismissing all cool headed critiques as oblivious without an ounce of justification makes you the disappointing, reactionary and mindless pod you keep accusing everyone else of being.

It’s really disappointing when those who claim enlightenment are just a hive mind too. Same mindless appeal to lockstep, goose stepping consensus, different group label.

[insert eye rolling emoticon here]

Nobody here seems to have an agenda that seeks to strip women of equal rights. But some here are making the plea that we not jump behind every opportunistic imbecile waving that feminism flag. Few are worthy representatives of a noble movement and many will damage the brand.

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Not really my argument… just my interpretation that that would follow from you thinking the law doesn’t have any significance if it’s not enforced. You say you want it repealed but if you don’t think it means anything unless it’s enforced (such that it can’t be cited in your opponent’s argument)… the proper question would be… WHY?

you said, and i was directly referring to:

(emphasis mine)

Your point, which is a continuation from your previous post is that somehow, its lack of enforcement means something critical.

You do say that it should be eliminated but i’m countering the antecedent premise where you think the lack of enforcement somehow strips the law’s citation in your opponents argument of meaning or validity.