Gamers who harass women are literally losers

[Cronozilla]

Key-Glyph, you're great people. Never change.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Key-Glyph, you're great people. Never change.

Amen! Key, you do not have to speak for women. You speak for yourself and keep being awesome! We love you!

[Exhuminator]

Why are you using backticks instead of apostrophes?

Because at the time I was using a non-standard keyboard that does not have apostrophes but does have backticks.

[Sarge]

Exhuminator has tried to politely bow out before. And his position is being extrapolated to far more than he has stated. I think it might be time to let it go.

[dsheinem]

Jesus Christ this thread is a shitshow.

Yeah it really is.

I originally posted a bunch of links explaining why I thought Anita is a hack. As an addendum, I mentioned I thought she was hypocritical with her makeup usage. Of course out of all the links I posted about why I thought her work is flawed, that totally gets ignored, and a strawman argument is built up about how I think feminists who wear makeup aren't really feminists. Which was a misconstrued argument to begin with, because I was only talking about Anita in particular, and not every lipstick feminist in the whole world.

Despite the laughable and ridiculous efforts of others to convince me otherwise, my opinion on Anita and her work still hasn't changed. My final stance is Feminist Frequency is a deeply flawed show, Anita is a conwoman, and a hypocrite. But I'm not about to sit here and argue for days with strangers on the internet just to validate my own opinion. It's a complete waste of time, and I have better things to do with my life. I come to this forum to talk about video games, and things that relate to video games, not to deeply debate feminist philosophy.

JT/Michi/Dsh/whoever - you guys can sit around and talk about how you think I don't understand women's rights, or I am an alpha male poster child, or whatever you inaccurately believe about me. The fact remains, I raised a beautiful young woman, who is well adjusted in society, and wouldn't let a man mistreat her for anything in the world. That's reality land over here. So kindly project your misogynist-angst somewhere else where it's actually needed.

This post is bullshit on several fronts.

A) The links you posted are stuff I've read in the past. Most of them are coming from the #gamergate crowd and their ilk, and few if any of them are actually engaging the arguments she is actually making in her videos. Instead, They are trying to discredit them with ad hominem attacks, not with an actual engagement with the very BASIC arguments of "hey, here are these tropes in video games that exist." Those ad hominem attacks also rest on some pretty shaky "research" and a lot of iffy claims about causation, etc.

B) Having a "final stance", which is clearly coming from a place of lack of knowledge and cherry-picked and misrepresented sources, is dumb. You are entitled to do it I suppose, but don't spew off on a discussion forum thinking that ignorance can just be left alone.

C) I never said any of the things about you that you claim I did in that last paragraph. I didn't see anyone else doing so either.

It is hard to take talk of "reality land" seriously when you are essentially ignoring the reality of what was even said in a thread. You are right that someone is twisting the conversation to suit their own view of things: but that someone is you. Based on what has actually been said, there's no basis for you to try and wrap up the discussion and characterize it as such with this post. You can't ask to "agree to disagree" and then decide to paint a bullshit picture of the conversation that occurred afterwards.

I will add that I take no issue with you personally. I am glad that you've raised a great daughter and I'm glad that you aren't misogynsitic. That's great that you'll defend your daughter from assholes. My "beef" is with the quality of your arguments and the manner in which you've presented them.

[Exhuminator]

And his position is being extrapolated to far more than he has stated.

Man you aren't kidding. Some of the diatribes I've seen have been completely overblown considering what I was originally actually talking about. Things I have not literally said, nor have I intentionally implied, in this thread:

Feminism is bad or wrong.
Women are less than men.
Female gamers are lesser than male gamers.
Feminists who wear makeup aren't actually real feminists.
Anita Sarkeesian is an evil person out to ruin boys' clubs everywhere.

So if anyone who participated in this thread, believes that I believe any of the above statements to be true, understand with full clarity that I do not.

What I did say was that I think Anita Sarkeesian is a conwoman and does bad research and Feminist Frequency is a deeply flawed show from a construction aspect. I say that based on watching her initial episodes, and lots of research I've done about her on the internet. That does not mean that I think the base concept of Feminist Frequency is a bad idea. I think it's an idea worth exploring, if done so via fair and accurate research, with proper context and frame of reference. Now MAYBE the more recent episodes of Feminist Frequency accomplish that goal. However, I have not watched the more recent episodes, due to how fallible I found the initial episodes.

I also said that Anita Sarkeesian is a hypocrite due to her visual appearance on her show. I say that because one of her initial original points of conceit, was that video games show females to be artificially attractive, and that contrivance is damaging to real life female gamers' psyche. Yet at the same time, she artificially enhances her beauty to appear more attractive on her show, which IN MY OPINION is a side effect of her own psyche being damaged by societal pressure. And furthermore, is deeply hypocritical, considering the material she is presenting in comparison to her own appearance. This is an opinion folks, and I'm allowed to have it. I find it utterly ludicrous to read pages and pages of people being so upset about that ONE aspect of my own personal OPINION. And then conflating and extrapolating all manner of false pretenses about my own beliefs on feminism, from such a small statement of personal opinion.

This post is bullshit on several fronts.

This is the second time in this thread, that you have called another person's opinion "shit". I think this says volumes about your own ego.

and few if any of them are actually engaging the arguments she is actually making in her videos

I disagree, because a lot of the facts presented correlate well in illustrating her as being hypocritical on multiple fronts.

They are trying to discredit them with ad hominem attacks

That is only because so many have risen her up to be some sort of savior of feminism in the digital world. When a person goes beyond being a researcher, and instead becomes an icon, it's not unusual for people who disagree to attack the foundations of what they see as a false idol.

Having a "final stance", which is clearly coming from a place of lack of knowledge and cherry-picked and misrepresented sources, is dumb.

Actually what is dumb, is pretending that your own opinion about feminism and all that it encompasses, is pure and hard fact, and anyone who disagrees is more ignorant than you.

Like it or not, feminism is not a hard scientific body of factual truisms. Rather feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. Which means that multiple philosophies can spring forth from this central concept.

One feminist philosophy says that women should not feel they have to, nor should be expected by society to, wear makeup to artificially enhance their physique. Rather this stance says that a woman's natural beauty is worth more, and is more attractive than, a woman who's appearance has been muddled by the application of powders and oils to her face. I PERSONALLY AGREE with this avenue of thought. I honestly and sincerely believe that a woman's natural beauty is more attractive, compared to if the same woman were to paint over her face or mark it up with makeup. Because I hold this belief, I find Anita's makeup to be hypocritical, especially when she's presenting concepts that I believe are paradoxical to her own image.

You are entitled to do it I suppose, but don't spew off on a discussion forum thinking that ignorance can just be left alone.

You say "ignorance", I say "opinion". If I had "spewed" something that is provable as being scientifically inaccurate in a laboratory, then it could be labeled as ignorance. If you can't handle other people on a forum having a different view than your own, without calling that opinion "shit" or accusing that person of being ignorant, then I think you have a serious problem.

You are right that someone is twisting the conversation to suit their own view of things: but that someone is you. Based on what has actually been said, there's no basis for you to try and wrap up the discussion and characterize it as such with this post. You can't ask to "agree to disagree" and then decide to paint a bullshit picture of the conversation that occurred afterwards.

A third time you have called someone's opinion "bullshit" in this thread. It's a meme now. Look, the way I wrapped up things is how I saw them. If you don't agree with my consensus, than that is fine by me. But please refrain from being insulting about it.

I will add that I take no issue with you personally.

Based on our history of dialogue in this forum, I do not believe that is true.

That's great that you'll defend your daughter from assholes.

That is not what I meant. I did not mean I would defend my daughter from assholes. I said:

I raised a beautiful young woman, who is well adjusted in society, and wouldn't let a man mistreat her for anything in the world.

By that statement, I meant that I raised her in such a way that she herself wouldn't let a man mistreat her. Which has hugely different implications.

My "beef" is with the quality of your arguments and the manner in which you've presented them.

The quality of my argument was solely based on personal opinions and different philosophy about feminism than you, so of course you would take "beef" with them. That does not give you the right to call those differences "bullshit" nor to imply I am ignorant. But if that is what it takes for you to cool your jets and express your opinion, than so be it.

Obviously you and I don't get along, nor do we agree on this matter, or pretty much any matter we ever discuss. Now I am for one last time agreeing to disagree. That does not mean that I think I'm right and you're wrong. It simply means that further arguments are going to get us nowhere, and will only continue to derail the original point of this thread.

---

Now if it pleases the court, I move that we strike this entire pseudo-feminist debate from the record, and proceed with the originally intended topic of this thread.

[J T]

I should probably take my ten foot pole and go home, but I'll say a few things anyway. Because I'm dumb like that.

Dsh, you and I are generally on the same side of this argument, but I'm not all on board with your methods. You can't discredit ad hominem attacks with more ad hominem attacks and appeals to your own authority. I know you have worked hard to get where you are and have depth of understanding of these issues and its frustrating when people seem to miss your point entirely, but calling their opinions "bullshit" and suggesting that they accept your opinion because you are a professor with years experience in this area doesn't help change minds. On the contrary, people tend to get offended and more entrenched in their own views, as we have seen happen over the umpteen derailed pages of this thread.

Exhuminator, though you are being personally attacked at points in this thread, I would like to clarify that I personally have only intended to critique your ideas in this thread. If I have done otherwise and led into the realms of personal attack, you have my apology. Though you do piss me off at times with the bluntness and stubborness in how you state your opinions, you obviously aren't the only one to do this and you generally contribute a lot to this messageboard. I think it would be a shame if you up and left over this debate.

I also understand that you are feeling like we are extrapolating more about your perspective than what you have explicitly stated, and I think that is likely true. I'm happy about the aspects of feminism you have listed that we are in agreement with (equality etc), and you should be proud to have raised a daughter that can fend for herself.

That all being said, my disagreements with you on this topic go beyond the lipstick feminist issue. I have read the other links you posted and they don't necessarily detract from the content of the Feminist Frequencies videos. They instead attempt to call into question Sarkeesian's credibility as a consistent feminist throughout her lifetime. They are more condemning to her prior associate though, Dagget (or whatever his name was) who was doing handwriting analysis (graphology as it is called has no validity and I'm surprised and appalled that his testimony as a character witness is considered admissable in any court). I see why it is suspect that she had any involvement with this guy, particularly since he wrote a book about using NLP to seduce women. Make no mistake, it is weird that she ever had anything to do with him. Nevertheless, we all have to associate with people we disagree with and I see these articles as smear campaigns full of ad hominem attacks on Sarkeesian, just as Dsh said, because her prior business associations/mistakes-in-life should have little to no bearing on the merits of her arguments as stated within the Feminist Frequency videos. I also stand by my earlier statement that she receives extra scrutiny for her work because she is a female calling out the boy's club nature of the gaming world. These articles you linked appear to me to be written by muckrakers largely trying to discredit her work based on inconsistencies of her character rather than to challenge the validity of her stated arguments.

[J T]

Key-Glyph, you're great people. Never change.

+1

[Gunstar Green]

I should probably take my ten foot pole and go home, but I'll say a few things anyway. Because I'm dumb like that.

I'm glad you're dumb then because that was a much needed post.

[dsheinem]

You can't discredit ad hominem attacks with more ad hominem attacks and appeals to your own authority.

I didn't use any ad hominem attacks that I can recall. I called arguments "dumb," not people.

I only appealed to my own authority where it seemed relevant to the discussion, which was here:

Well, I think you're making some significant generalizations there, but it's your opinion, so fair enough. Now I could counter all this with my own arguments with sources, and explain why I think you're wrong.

I've encountered and grappled with the arguments you are presenting (often many times) and am critiquing them not merely from a place of "well, I have this other idea" but from one of prolonged engagement with and careful consideration of competing points of view. That's why I tend not to "agree to disagree" in most instances around certain subjects: the person who is trying to sit at the status quo of their current worldview is too often doing so out of a disinterest in learning more and understanding better the complexities of and political implications for their position.

We have this inane logic operative in much of society that any opinion is as good as another, and thus we should just agree to disagree when we can't find common ground or decide who's opinion should be given more weight. Especially around certain issues, I find this way of thinking to be irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst, even if on the surface it seems to be very kumbayah-ish. Given that Exhuminator had made some earlier comments showing a lack of understanding about some basic principles of the connections between feminist ideas around credibility, appearance, agency, etc. I took it as a reasonable point to explain that my opinion is not grounded in "well, I think" but in some actual authority on the subject. If that comes across as offensive or egotistical, I suppose that's unfortunate...but, to be honest, I really don't care. If someone has expertise on a subject, they shouldn't feel like it is somehow "poor form" to invoke it when the validity of their argument is being called into question.

Exhuminator, in your last long post you went into a lot of discussion about Anita the person, which I have throughout this thread tried to dissociate from the conversation about the arguments she actually makes in her videos (which is more or less a very straightforward series of arguments saying "Hey: look at this pattern of representation!"). The discussion of the arguments in her videos were relevant because they were characterized as being poorly presented and, thus, contributing factors to the information found in the study mentioned in the OP. I have only been trying to suggest that "no, her arguments in those videos are not a problem." Then people started attacking her appearance, etc., which is irrelevant. That's how we got here, that's all I am trying to say, and I don't know why that seems so hard to get.

Ex, I really do value your contributions to the forum and I really, truly do assure you that I bear you no ill will. I probably latch on to some of your posts because I often see the potential in your argumentative style to be persuasive and shape readers' opinions, and so I worry when it falls into the realm of the fallacious. That's what I saw, that's why I have been a bit of an agon in this thread, and that's why I keep coming back to the basic ideas I am trying to distill here.

EDIT: I forgot that I did invoke my "authority" one other time in the thread when someone said that her arguments "wouldn't pass muster at a junior high debate" or some such, but given that I have taught, coached, & judged high level collegiate debate, I again felt it was reasonable to explain why the "junior high" claim was shit...

EDIT 2: