ahopelesstroglodyte

@JasonR86 said:

@ZeForgotten said:

@shoddyrobot said:

@Seven2600: wow. I looked @Seven2600 said:

@Rasmoss said:

@Jeff said:

Wow, Kotaku must be thrilled to see their name mentioned so much here. I mean, if genuine articles about actual, serious issues make people think of them then they must be doing something right, huh? It's certainly a step up from the typical complaint they get about... video game cakes and Japanese panty shots or whatever it is.

It's sad to see some of you people get so furious over the basic idea of equality, as if that's something that should be argued about instead of just being implicitly understood. I mean, did you grow up with mothers that were constantly putting cigarettes out on your arms or something?

Or are you just currently growing up as an outsider and feel the need to lash out whenever anyone claims that there are groups of people out there that somehow have it even worse than you do? I was like you once. I was angry all the time. As I grew up I cooled down and gained a little perspective on the world. I hope, for your sakes, that you have a similar experience and get out of your weird, little bubble, at least for a little while. It gets oppressively ignorant in there.

Thank you, Jeff. Well spoken.

@Jeff Gerstmann Sorry I'm not sure you can have a valid opinion on knowing anything about or understanding equality....http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-far-cry-3/17-6839/ @~6:41 and @~15:45...what are the basic ideas of equality that you understand? Maybe you should wonder if its always been you who's in the weird, little bubble, with no perspective, still angry all the time...

uh... i went and looked up those time codes on the video you linked. I have no idea what you're talking about, so how about making it more clear than just vague accusations?!

Maybe we have to watch from 6:41 to 15:45 and see if we can spot it? Like a dumb game of "I can't find anything but if someone else can then I can take credit for it"

They joke that because the protagonists are "rich white kids" they deserve all the bad things they suffer including death. It was a joke but it looks weird compared to this article and Jeff and Patrick damning naysayers. Rule of thumb, jokes about rich people and white men are ok. Sexism jokes? No no no! We'll crucify your ass!

Yes, because there are major differences in privilege between different groups. My short and sweet way of stating this is: It is not fair or just to treat everyone equally when everyone is not equally privileged.

By and large, rich white people control the institutions responsible for phenomena like sexism and racism. They, much more so than anyone else, have the power to change the situation. They can acknowledge the problems, better represent women & minorities in their companies/pop culture/etc., refuse to work with other rich white people who don't follow their lead, and so forth. That they don't do nearly enough of this is a major reason these problems persist, so I have no problem joking about them or criticizing them.

This is also why "cracker" is nowhere near as serious as the n-word, btw. The latter represents real oppression since it has an entire established power structure to back it up, while the former does not and is mostly a coping mechanism for dealing with said power structure. Same thing with "die cis scum" and similar phrases.

@Zetetic_Elench said:

lol. misandry doesn't actually exist, fyi.

Thank you for this and your other posts here! "Misandry" is the "reverse racism" of gender issues, nothing more.

For those who don't understand, misandry would require women to have far more power than men in order to be real, since (again) sexism and racism are institutional phenomena. And I don't know of a society in this world where that's true.

@EnduranceFun: So is it like a cult if someone says we have to acknowledge that sexism and racism are things that exist? Privilege is similarly supported by evidence, so...

BTW, I've also seen you say on this thread that internet anonymity should never be compromised. Ideas like this are what helped create Violentacrez and the overall creepy culture of Reddit. The most reasonable stance here is "you give up your own right to anonymity when you compromise someone else's anonymity or do something else equally horrible to them", period.

@Brodehouse: Again, you're projecting re: privilege. I am a man, making me highly privileged in these conversations, and I acknowledge this. However, I still make an effort to contribute what I can based on what I've read and my experiences with women, while understanding why people like Zetetic have a right to feel the way they do. Thus far I haven't received anything close to the kind of response you've gotten from them. Being privileged does not make you incapable of empathy; not listening to those who suffer under sexism when they point our your privilege, on the other hand, does suggest a lack of empathy to them. And the reality is that no matter how much you read about phenomena related to sexism, you cannot fully appreciate their power without direct experience; I can read the Schrodinger's Rapist article (http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/) and see the need for this kind of approach, but it will never trigger a visceral response from me like it does from many women because I don't have to worry about being raped by random strangers.

As someone who identifies as a skeptic, I would argue that the concept of privilege is so strongly supported by research (please don't tell me you're one of those people who just ignores all the social sciences!) and real-world evidence that your denial of it is a sexist act (in result if not necessarily in intention) and comparable in spirit to global warming denial. You calling yourself a feminist isn't helping either; "feminist" and "ally" aren't labels you can just apply to yourself and expect respect for, they're something you have to earn from others with your actions. And having read Patrick's article, I'm not seeing what you're talking about with "servility" and such. I also don't see a lot of these things from Sarkeesian that you do, although I will say that shame and guilt have also been necessary and helpful aspects of social movements throughout history; you need severe punishment to discourage bad behavior when it's as strongly ingrained in a culture as sexism and racism are!

Victimization is often a real thing, and you bringing that up gives the impression that you buy into right-wing "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" thinking. Again, historically this has been proven not to work for oppressed populations since their main problems are structural and not individual. People can acknowledge that they are victims of oppression while working to fight that oppression, you know. And even if you don't see modern feminism as "comparable" to civil rights, historically my point stands for almost all social movements regardless of however you may think they differ from each other.

@AmericanNinja: This was something else I was going to post about. You are right that this isn't just gaming; within the past year or two, there has been an explosion of conversation on sexism in many other internet-nerd subcultures. Think of what's happened in the atheist/skeptic movement ever since Rebecca Watson told them "hey guys, maybe it's not such a great idea to hit on women in elevators at 4 in the morning!" and other women started coming forward with stories of sexual harassment at atheist conferences.

That said, it's more effective to highlight the problem in a particular subculture since you can point out specific instances and call out specific people. That helps establish the idea that this stuff is not OK, even when it's your friends doing it. That last part is especially key for these kinds of communities, as the Geek Social Fallacies article demonstrates: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

@Brodehouse: You misunderstand. Saying someone is "privileged" isn't supposed to imply that they're inherently bad or ignorant (though a lot of tumblr kids who don't understand social theory do use it that way!). It's simply saying "you haven't had to experience certain hardships that the people in question have, so listen to them and realize that their opinions probably matter more than yours on these specific issues." After all, when asking about evolution, you wouldn't trust the proverbial man on the street over someone who's spent their life working in evolutionary biology, right?

Regarding the "with us or against us" thing...issues of gender, race, et al. are almost always structural in nature, based on widely-accepted underlying ideas more than individual behavior. It's very easy to claim that you're all for gender equality while still defending some of the core concepts that uphold sexism; I and many others in this debate would argue that this is sexist behavior. Most activists I've seen consider "allies" who do this to be worse than no friends at all, so from their perspective framing them as "against us" does infinitely less harm to the movement than including them would.

And historically, liberal accommodationism of the sort being advocated for here has not won marginalized groups rights; these battles have almost always been won by being loud and angry and persistent and yes, uncompromising. Ask virtually anyone who was part of the civil rights movement, and they will tell you that it absolutely could not have done what it did without Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. Even MLK Jr. was not the middle-of-the-road accommodationist that whitewashed mainstream history makes him out to be; near the end of his life he had begun to speak much more harshly about the US and even capitalism in general.