NYU has sports teams? Went there. Did not know.
Yes, Pinkerâs a psychologist but his specialty is psychology of language. Most of the primary research heâs done is language acquisition by infants.
And twin studies arenât exactly what Iâd call ârigorousâ. Did you know the probability of getting mugged is heritable according to twin studies? Which gene do you suppose codes for that?
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Bzzzt. No. Wrong. Our daughter has told us she wants us to get her tiaras and pink clothing. We did not start with any and didnât even have any pink clothes before she asked for them. We have not pushed them on her and try actively every day to present gender-neutral colored clothing.
Sometimes these little kids have opinions based on their own thoughts. They may have been influenced by their peers, but we have never pushed gender stereotypes on either of our kids, let alone âvery heavily.â
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There was just an article/study (google-fu is failing me) that in general, when 1/3 of the characters are female, male viewers think itâs 50/50, and when it is 50/50 they think its 70/30âŚ
We need to talk about these things more! and more and more! 
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Man, the amount of male privilege thatâs swinging in this thread is astounding. Go Team Misogyny!
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I find nothing brings 'em out of the wood work like a just the barest hint of unexamined privilege. âWhat do you mean this thing I love has some issues!?â Arglebargleattack!
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single quote that was taken out of context
Please, what is the context around 'Iâm not a fan of video gamesâŚI had to learn a lot to get up to speed" that changes its meaning?
Iâm sure there were a lot of people who didnât like her, itâs a big world after all, but me, I was neutral to her until I saw that video. Someone rising to fame and prominence based on a lie about who they are bothers me.
The problem with her approach, to me, is that itâs a non problem, and her analysis is lacking. Early games had very little ROM space to work with. They could only tell very simple stories. Whatâs the easiest way to tell an emotionally compelling story? Boy rescues girl. Itâs universally understandable, itâs instantly emotionally engaging. If anything, this choice reflects well on men as a whole, and male instincts to protect females.
More recent games are focused on shooting and blowing stuff up, because thatâs what sells. Video games are hugely expensive, and like movies studios stick with established genres, the biggest being First Person Shooter. Most women simply arenât as interested in virtualized shooting and killing and mayhem as men, for whatever reason. This certainly doesnât speak poorly of women. So these games are aimed at men, because men spend money on games. There have been efforts to make games that specifically targeted at girls, and they didnât do so well.
In short, if you want to fix this problem, the best way to do it is to encourage women to spend more money on games - but you shouldnât really do that, because games are a waste of time in the first place. Thus my disdain for her critiques - she misdiagnoses the the cause and scope of the problem, and and thus her solutions are not realistic or helpful.
And your solution of âshe should just make her OWN gamesâ is not realistic or helpful, either. You have no right to complain about ârealistic or helpfulâ.
Educating people so they donât make the same mistakes over and over again, building awareness in the community, starting a dialogue, etc - that is realistic and helpful.
The fact that you are throwing out the same tired fallacies filled with factual untruths that come up every time a woman dares to complain about sexism, that have all been heard a thousand times - thatâs not helpful.
For somebody who is so concerned about âhelpfulnessâ, and who doesnât even care about video games, why donât you be helpful and just not post?
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There are numerous studies showing that women play video games just as much as men do, and spend more money (probably because they play âcasualâ games with in game purchases more than the AAA FPS games).
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Almost certainly intentional and satirical. Itâs like a perfect storm of female tropes, some of which Sarkeesian has covered before, like Woman in Refrigerator-with a literal refrigerator.
Div 3 at a school that big, so not surprising. I know because my sister was on one of the teams.
Wow, good spot! My brain must have parsed that completely differently.
However, that said, I donât think many people come into contact with Pacman and donât realise itâs called Pacman. Itâs not just the name of the character, after all.
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Hear hear!
What gets me about this, is, letâs say Iâm a t.v. script writer. It seems like if I have some good female characters, it just makes things more interesting. Thereâs all kind of family dynamics involved once you get women there. And I think when you get humorous female roles, it makes comedy really fun - Anchorman is a great film and I think Christina Applegateâs great comic timing just makes a lot of the stupid jokes work.
Even some of the better shows for womenâs parts, a lot of times they are just moving the plot along, not really a plot mover in her own right - a person to be rescued, or my pet peeve, that wonderful angel of a person that makes you just feel like life is worth living. I mean, Lord, when the wife and daughter appear dressed all in white, you know they are just vehicles for the man to shine all for his baby mommaâs sweet love.
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You do realize that the âvery heavilyâ was referring to the parents of @Melissa1âs nieces/nephews, right?
She generalizes that parents subtly indicate whether or not little girls should play with tiaras and purses. Most people are probably indicating that girls should be playing with tiaras and purses (peers and advertising might be not so subtle), but the opposite is not good either.
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Well, there you goâŚthere ARE games specifically targeted at women, such as many casual games and browser games. So Anitaâs whole argument comes down to cherry picking data.
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True for cardinals, but blue jay males and females are nearly identical in colour (the females may be a bit smaller). Just to be a pedant.
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Thatâs true, and there are many other examples that you could mention (lions, peacocks, anglerfish, etc.) I still maintain that human gender roles or fashions shouldnât have much of an impact on a game like Angry Birds. More complex games with character development are different, but I think part of the problem is that gender roles seem to come into everything, with the obligatory accompanying evidence from appearance and character that these are girls (because they wear pink and talk about love) or guys (because they have muscles and act like dicks).
No it really doesnât. The fact that big budget games by most of the big budget developers are sexist and gross isnât âcherry picking dataâ. Youâre just trying to discredit her without making any arguments, and not even apologizing for when you outright misstate facts.
Is it fair to call you a liar, now?
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So, to sum up:
Things Sasha thinks are a waste of time: playing games, critiquing media, looking at sexism in different aspects of our society.
Things Sasha doesnât think are a waste of time: posting on blog articles about videos she didnât like about how all these other things are beneath her, doubting the motives of strangers.
Thank you, I think we understand your perspective.
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Or, whatâs far more likely, you havenât pushed those gender stereotypes onto your littlenâs, but society has.
âThey may have been influenced by their peersâ. Thereâs no âmay have beenâ about it Iâm sure I donât need to remind you that the whole âpink is for girlsâ thing is barely a hundred years old. And sparkles? I assume we have De Beers to blame for that one.
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