Look- I don’t mind you coming here and wasting all my time, but…
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I still maintain that the reason she gets so much hate is that she isn’t angry, doesn’t seem to hate men, speaks rationally, is attractive, has a sense of humor, and doesn’t come off as a bull-dyke.
In other words, you can’t just write her off as a caricature of a man-hating nutter who’s a lesbian because they’re too ugly to get a man.
It’s much easier to defend yourself from someone who’s attacking your behavior than it is from someone who’s calmly pointing it out. That, you actually need to apply real facts and logic to, rather than just make an ad hominem conclusion and write them off.
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International men day is the other 364
I like how you call Sarkeesian “Anita” as if she’s your friend or something, but use Ebert’s last name.
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As I read this thread, what strikes me over and over again is that for a while now, I’ve heard video game fans and creators demand that games be taken seriously, as an art form in their own right (speaking of Ebert, he DID get a world of shit for saying that he’d never see games on the same level as film, IIRC!)
And, as you obviously know, there’s a huge tradition of critical engagement with art, literature, poetry, music, film, theatre, etc. etc.
So I just keep thinking, OK, you want your favored medium taken seriously as an art form… but only if everybody’s NICE about it? Only if no one ever pulls out the bag of Serious Critique Tools and goes to town on the thing you love? You just want uncritical adoration and praise for games? (Yeah, I saw the video response to the collective freak-out over GTA whatever getting only 9 out of 10 stars.)
And gamers with a hate-on for Sarkeesian wonder why people look at them and go “oh GROW UP”?
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It’s all about the Mülerrian ducts and the hormone that inhibits them. Anti-Müllerian hormone - Wikipedia
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This is not about men seeking more power than they already have, it’s about focusing on issues that are specific to men and celebrating men’s place in a society that is becoming more equal. In a changing society where men need to take more of a role in areas such as childcare, it is important to highlight good role models and to challenge assumptions that men are incompetent in the home or put children at risk. If we actually believe that many of the differences between men and women are mostly superficial or cultural, we should seek to address issues like the high incarceration and suicide rates among boys and men. Men are often expected to be strong and not share problems, so abuse is much more likely to be unreported or not taken seriously, and there are often fewer support networks in place to address them. Men have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn as traditional jobs have been lost, which seriously affects mental health and community structures. It is not about blaming women for men’s problems or fighting for a larger slice of the pie, but I do think these issues are important enough to merit their own day. Some of these issues can be traced to problems caused by men or to failings in traditional societies, but they are real and often negatively affect men and the relationships and communities that they are part of. Likewise, this is not saying that women’s issues are unimportant or of lesser importance, just that these are also issues that need to be taken seriously in order to create a better society for everyone.
In any case, it’s not a day I’m going to devote my life to promoting. I just hadn’t heard of it before and it is fairly common to hear people going on about how men don’t get their own special day when women do. It’s actually Universal Children’s Day today, although Children’s Day is celebrated on other dates in different countries.
Hmm, which is more likely, that while she was in grad school ( and was perhaps not playing or enjoying games ) she lied to her class mates or that has staked her entire professional life on a lie and spends countless hours researching and writing and talking about something she hates?
I mean… I claimed to not enjoy Counting Crows at one point in high school, and I tried not to like them… but I actually really enjoy listening to Counting Crows…
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I don’t understand why being career-minded is a terrible motive. As an academic (I’m an associate professor with a specialty in games) I can assure you that I am very conscious of needing to publish in order to further my career (or even to tread water in my career), and that almost every other academic is of a similar mindset.
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Apropos of some of the side discussions here on this thread: GoldieBlox Rube Goldberg commercial
We could easily deconstruct this video (and the toy it is advertising), but it’s still fun to watch.
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Milk glands in the male work if you give him the right hormones or medications. It seems like men don’t advertise it, though.
I’d like to be fair to video games, here. If they also don’t pass the reverse Bechdel test (swap men for women) then you can hardly say that’s a problem. A lot of video games just don’t have anyone talking to anyone. Also, unlike movies, video games are much more likely to follow the viewpoint of a single character and only include scenes that have that character. Again, take a video game with a female lead and see if at any point the men in the video game have a conversation that isn’t about her. I realize that more video games have male leads than female leads, I just don’t think the Bechdel test applies in the same way.
But seriously: can lactate. Barely used != non-functional.
Interesting.
In much the same way that it was common to refer to ‘Man’ when encompassing all Homo sapiens, Pacman refers to both the instantiation of Pacman ‘himself’ and to that which encompasses him; the game and arcade cabinet.
… do Han Chinese men out number every other gender/“race” combination? Why is that “silly”? What?
Brilliant 
It’s cheaper to hire a wet nurse, I expect.
Good talk. Very much agree with the main premise, that female characters are simplistically derived from male characters or treated as an afterthought in a lot of media. I’m the father of an incredible daughter, I want her to have as many options as possible in life.
One niggle. I don’t think the gender binary is as arbitrary or false as she makes it out to be. By and large, physiology dictates gender. The binary is typical but not universal. A better path is to acknowledge that most people fit into one or the other category, open up the societal roles for each gender, and make room the people that genuinely don’t fit into the typical binary.
Second niggle. Companies do not have infinite money to market their goods. If the target audience is 80% male, they will tailor the advertising to attract as many customers as possible. It’s not about demeaning anyone, but attracting the most people to buy a product. That’s understandable. Having a single female Smurf in an entire village is not—and kinda creepy if you ask me.
A man can never have too many scarves. They go so well with so many different outfits!
Shoes, though? One black, one brown, a pair for “sports” and some hiking/work boots that also handle snow.
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1 in 4500 newborn girls will be born with “normal female external genitalia and [have] normal breast and pubic hair development”, but will find out as a teenager that their vagina and uterus are underdeveloped or absent. This often means that the women cannot get pregnant and may need surgery before they can have sex. Link: Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome: MedlinePlus Genetics
I don’t think external genitalia (either “normal” or a lack thereof at early stages) should be used to indicate anything about the body as a whole.
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