Anita Sarkeesian talks about harassment at XOXO Fest

In case you missed it, Anita Sarkeesian gave a talk at XOXO Fest last month discussing her experience with Internet harassment. I’m sure most people are already familiar with how vicious a lot of the abuse hurled at her can be, but some of the more outlandish impersonation attempts and conspiracy theories were definitely news to me. Do people really believe that she bleaches her skin and is somehow mind controlling prominent figures in the games industry? Yikes.

As as aside, I think Tropes vs Women could benefit from being formatted a bit more like this talk, because she comes across as much more charismatic and funny than people give her credit for. I’m a big fan of the content of her work, but the delivery can feel a bit prosaic and rigid at times — she’s obviously going for an academic tone, but there’s probably a way to make the message seem a bit more dynamic without losing the seriousness. I bet part of it is that she’s playing to a crowd, which makes me really want to see one of her essays delivered in from of an audience.

Anyway, regardless of how you feel about Feminist Frequency, I think this is worth watching, if only to get a glimpse at some of the more bizarre forms harassment can take.

Does she go beyond relaying things her harassers said to her, or is it 16 minutes of that?

I foresee mature conversation....or a thread lock.

@theht: That's definitely a part of it, but she spends a good chunk of time talking about how conspiracy theories are perpetuated from website to website and goes into the nature of some of the paranoia about her. It's good stuff! And it's only 15 minutes long!

@madman356647: Crosses fingers for mature conversation...

I agree with her video series feeling rigid, but also it seems appropriate. I've only watched a few parts, so I'm not well versed. The most recent ones, (I think were the "women as background objects"?), were pretty interesting. I played a fair amount of the games she talked about, and never noticed the problems she discusses. For the most part, very informative. Just occasionally they felt somewhat exaggerated.

A good example was something from Far Cry 3. She showed a clip of a man harassing a women (a prostitute) for not giving him money or something. I recently played the game, saw this happen, and yes it was a background tidbit. But the setting of the game was this hellish island where the natives are ruled by pirates. Prostitution would almost certainly exist and be terrible. Am I wrong for thinking it was...appropriate? I do feel her point is important though.

As for this video, its nice to see her do this sort of stuff live, with more of a personality.

Aside: is XOXO normally done in abandoned warehouses...?

That's my problem with her videos. She presents situations without giving proper context and condemns them based on what they are in a vacuum, not how they fit into the game as a whole.

The Portal bit was really cheesy in a kind of charming way. Like the video game equivalent of shouting out "Hello, [city name]!".

I've always been disappointed with how willing well-meaning people have been to sandbag Sarkeesian to try and advance their own arguments with her detractors. A lot of "well, I obviously don't agree with this point," "if only she actively played games," "her tone should probably be less accusatory," etc. It feels like so many gave up on backing her the moment they realized how much hate was organized in opposition.

At least she's found a way to turn the bullshit toward constructive use with these public talks, I suppose.

I swear I'm not trolling when I say this: but Anita owes her entire career to the people who harass her. Without them, Fem Freq would probably never gotten noticed.

I'm not a fan of her work as it's agenda based, often comes off as ignorant of the medium as a whole and narrow minded. She represents an important discussion poorly, in my opinion.

That being said: she does not deserve to be harassed for giving her opinions, text based abuse, verbal abuse, or any other kind of personal attacks. No one does.

I also don't deserve abuse for not agreeing with how she approaches the topic- so don't reply to me to tell me I'm using words that bother you and to complain about how I disagree with her. I've had that argument thrown at me so many times already, and it does not change my opinion of her.

@getz: I wouldn't say her whole career. I watched her original Tropes vs Women series. She definitely did gain a lot of recognition due to the harassment she got for her kickstarter though. I guess if you think about it, it is kind of ironic that the people who brought her to everyone in the gaming community's attention in the first place wish she would disappear now.

I'd love for Anita to explain why she believes her views should be writ large on the medium of video games. She's nothing but the next generation Joe Lieberman but coming at it from a liberal bent.

Games are forms of expression that don't need to conform to her or anyone else's sociopolitical will.

@getz: Though they sometimes lack nuance, as a whole Sarkeesian's arguments have a force to them that's hard to deny, and the kinds of reactions she describes--violent, misognyistic, defensive--serve to reinforce them, which I think is a more generous way of saying what you're saying. The fact that it seems impossible in this climate to have a measured, well-considered debate about the role of women in video games is a symptom of just how bad things have gotten. (Cue the people who are going to tell me that Sarkeesian refuses to have these debates, which is just more misinformation.) I feel bad for Sarkeesian and other women subjected to this kind of harassment, but I'm also concerned for these clearly damaged young men who think this kind of behaviour is appropriate and who lack the trust or confidence to treat women as equals.

@sil3n7: I don't if that's what she's doing or not, but I think her videos (I've only watched a few) are just trying to point out trends within games. She's saying that games represent women in strange and scary ways. To me she's really just pointing out what happens in every medium (movies, magazines, ect.) but is saying video games should be able to change that pattern.

I get why some people could watch her videos and get upset. But really I think she just wishes games would diversify themselves and grow beyond the handful of portrayals we see so often. Or maybe that's just how I interrupt it.

My view on the matter.

Also, in the videos of hers I have watched, to quote from Sherlock Holmes, it seems she "[twists] facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." So again, "[s]he represents an important discussion poorly, in my opinion."

Her videos are flat because she writes them in an academic tone with a thesis to prove. It's not really about entertainment - the videos are there just to teach.

I don't think that's the case necessarily. For the most part, her videos are about pointing out patterns.

Also, let me dispel that misconception a bit. I've been working as a concept artist for now 6 years ( almost 7) and I can tell you with all certainly that games are made to conform with a sociopolitical will. That is precisely her point of showing these patterns...that they shouldn't.

Most decisions are not made based on some artistic impulse. Artistic freedom is hardly a thing on that system unless you are outside of it as an indie. It is seen as a bad thing, a selfish thing. Because at the end of the day games are made by many people who would like to stay employed and it's just easier to conform. You don't want to fail your piers because you had an idea that was not already proven.

What this discussion does, for us, is to finally have an excuse to break the mold. To open the way for new possibilities and argue that it is commercially viable. That the interest is there and we don't have to be afraid.

In my relatively short career, I'm sure I could point you to things I hate I HAD to make...and really really wish I could show you what I really wanted to. I'm sure many would say the same.

This is the reality of it. This is why so many developers actually like Anita. People are not being forced to like her from pier pressure or the fear of socio political consequences. It's not a convenient PR thing. Many of us where already being forced into a mold and now we can finally see a path where we can try new things.

Hey, good news! She addresses this assumption in the video! Go watch it!

There's more!

She would probably trade that infamy for not being harassed on a daily basis!

Yeah, but you can't use people as ammunition and then expect them to go away. Especially if they're the kind to send you death threats.

@finaldasa said:

I'm beginning to think this might be at the root of why (reasonable) people can't see eye-to-eye on Tropes vs Women. Some see the use of seconds-long clips from games as cherry-picking, whereas if you go in under the assumption that what's being shown cannot be representative of the whole game and is just an example used to point out an industry-wide trend, you're probably going to get a lot more from it.

For instance, @nickhead brought up the example of Far Cry 3 — I think it's totally fair to say the clip of the woman being verbally abused doesn't represent the totality of that game, but it is representative of a pretty common media trope, just like I could point to Sleeping Dogs as an example of the proliferation of the Batman combat system, even though that's just one aspect of the game.

It wasn't a particularly informative talk (probably because I have been following her on Twitter for a while) but I'm glad she is able to get out there and present something. It's amazing to see how level-headed she is after what she has been through.

@getz: As long as she's a feminist on the Internet, she's going to be the target of trolling, harassment and misinformation. If she chooses not to address it, it's a missed opportunity to expose a pervasive problem that people aren't aware of if they aren't socially/politically active women online.

Also, I object to your phrasing: "you can't use people as ammunition" As if she's being unfair to her abusers.

You know, I don't care much for discussing anything, because it usually just ends up with people becoming more entrenched in their own views. This just proves that. I will say that the people who harass this girl must be insane.

Object all you want, that's what she did. Used them as ammunition that is

@getz: who is she shooting? I don't think I understand this metaphor...

@getz: If by "used them as ammunition" you mean she showed that there's a problem with sexism in parts of the gaming community by showing people the harassment she received, then you're right. I don't see a problem with it though.

Those poor people sending death and rape threats. They never asked to have their comments used against them.

It's almost as if you should feel responsible for what you say and do, especially when it comes to threatening to murder people.

Please.

Yeah, bad metaphor. More like a boomerang than bullets.

I feel like her videos make leaps of logic that I can't agree with. That and her tendency to take things out of context to suit her narrative have made me not a huge fan of her work. That being said, the people harassing her (or anyone else, for that matter) shouldn't.

Patterns that she believes are fundamentally wrong. By that very definition, she believes things need to be different. She has failed to explain why everyone should agree with her. We didn't remove violence from games, why should games change with this topic du jour?

Things succeed or fail based on their quality. You don't need to argue them into existence. If people want to make games according to her doctrine, fine. They will ultimately be judged by how many copies are sold. Let the market sort out their value.

@sil3n7: By that logic Wii Sports was the best game of the generation.

That's the thing, though. There are so many of them, it's a little bit too convenient to simply write them off as crazy people. They've obviously got some deep insecurities, misguided rage, a severe lack of empathy and sadistic tendencies, but I think most of them are far from insane. The reason they act out in this way is because they get an enormous amount of positive feedback for it and there are almost no negative consequences. It's easy to see how an impressionable misfit could find their way to 4chan or the darker subreddits and be convinced that this kind of behavior is nothing more than envelope-pushing pranks or even a righteous crusade and law enforcement is, at present, very poorly equipped to deal with crimes of this nature.

If feminism and diversity in games means more FemShep, then please, by all means, do this.

See also: the Boss in Saints Row 3.

@chrissedoff: Your comment is hitting the nail on the head for me. Like, I've been on the internet since the late 90s and I've always accepted that there are trolls and assholes wherever you go. But I've always assumed that they were the minority. After this whole fiasco these past few months, I'm starting to suspect that the rational people are losing the internet to these vocal idiots.

To them it doesn't matter that there was no "sex for press" issues with Kotaku and Zoe Quinn. To them it doesn't matter that there is no credible evidence that Anita Sarkeesian made up her death and rape threats. To them it doesn't matter that this industry on the whole has been doing a shit job of making women feel welcome. And I'm goddamn terrified that they are going to win by sheer force of volume and ruin my beloved hobby.

Ha! "you don't need to argue them into existence" is where you are mistaken. Everything needs to be argued into existence. Even quality. Things cost money, time and must be justified somehow. You'd be surprised how many good things happened in games because someone had to strongly argue them into existence against solid opposition.

Things succeed on a market through marketing, not quality ( Not that I disagree with the ideal that quality should be king). If you want to sustain your ideal that games are a form of expression, then judging quality by their market success is a mistake.

Plenty of shit out there that sold more copies that it deserved. I should know, I worked on a few. ( you should know also, I bet you have played some disappointing stuff)Plenty that is fantastic, but failed in a market simply because someone wound't put the money to market it.

Nothing is as simple as you are putting it. There is not Anita "doctrine" either. As far as why should everyone should agree with her? I find that hard to answer...I don't think she failed to explain anything. I'm not sure what you didn't understand about it other than thinking it's a topic du jour and dismissing it because you don't see how it affects you. So I'm guessing the issue might be your disposition rather than the explanation.

edit:

*saying "fundamentally wrong" is a bit strong . I apologize for the exasperated tone. It's not that I'm trying to correct you. It's just a bit of a sensitive subject matter and I wanted to say this for a while.

A bit of an addendum: It's not about agreeing with her. That's not what I meant on my first post. It's about understanding. At the end of the day good characters and stories are not made from simply trying to please the sociopolitical landscape. That's your argument and to some degree mine also ( to another degree, also hers) It's about taking that understanding into account to make something better.

No person is 100% right, but everyone has a perspective. From a creative standpoint, feeding from different perspectives keeps things fresh.

Hardly.

What's happening is this vocal minority of idiots is being dragged into the spotlight because it generates traffic. There are far, far more people outraged at the indecent behavior, who keep clicking the articles about harassment like a train wreck they can't look away from and who can nod along humming and hawing "Oh, isn't that terrible." and feel the righteous indignation. Some talking heads are making a career out of being professional victims, not necessarily realizing that what they're doing is giving the attention so desperately yearned for to these sad sacks of humanity who should at best be ignored or at worst reported to the police.

Do you know why bullies bully? Because they want attention. Stop giving it to them. This is fucking playground rules 101.

"The industry almost exclusively catered to a straight white male demographic."

Geez, she annoys me. She acts like if you are any of the 3 above you are some evil woman hating monster. I like GTA, sometimes I laugh at off color jokes. Sue me.

Speaking of which, does she go into any suggestions on what people can actually do to stop harassment?

I don't think that's what she's getting at. She's saying that by focusing on a single demographic, characters in the medium become generic. How many games have you seen starring straight white gruff men with brown hair? There's nothing wrong with being any of those things, but the repetitiveness conjures up concerns of design-by-focus testing.

She wants new stories to be told about people from different perspectives.

Good talk. While I don't find her videos to be particularly revelatory I don't have a problem with them either. At the beginning there was an image of Michael's (from GTA V) son flipping the bird to his daughter with the word "misogyny" scrawled across the screen. I find that ridiculous. She's in danger of "the boy who cried wolf" syndrome which does a disservice to women when misogyny actually occurs.

@lab392 said:

Exactly. She's not saying there's anything wrong with being straight, white or a dude, just that games should represent and appeal to a more diverse audience.

I'm pretty sure that was just for dramatic effect — some dude giving the finger to a woman makes for a pretty good visual representation of misogyny.

You can't please people like Anita Sarkeesian. It's impossible and pointless, and distracts from your art. Even if you try your best to placate them, they will find something wrong. Even if you make one female character that they would arbitrarily define as "strong", there's no guarantee you'll get a pass on your next one because the slightest thing about it might offend them.

From a creator's perspective, there's no point. You have the option of spending time and resources kowtowing to a group of people--who will find fault with you regardless--versus the option of making characters you like and think are good characters. The bonus from the latter is that without someone's agenda hamstringing you, you're fully allowed to draw from past experiences with people to inform your character, making them more realistically flawed and relatable.

You can't please everybody all of the time, and you can't please some people any of the time. But if you please most of your audience most of the time, then you've probably done alright.

She is an excellent saleswoman for sure. Unfortunately, her and her boyfriend/business partner are not very good critics. That's my opinion of her.

Anyway, about those conspiracy theories. The ones I know of are:

The discontinuity between her statements about having been a gamer since age 5 and her prior statement to not being a gamer. The assertion is she is dishonest.

The suggestion that her tele-seminiar training formed the basis of her Kickstarter pitch video. The assertion being that she is using manipulative techniques.

The knowledge that she worked as PR for a hand writing expert who actively collaborated with prominent pick up artists. The assertion being she isn't a very good feminist.

Does she talk about anything but the scum of the internet that don't actually have any relevancy on the larger issue she claims to go for?

People who claim people bleach their skin just to do feminist stuff on the internet are people that need to be fucking ignored, not used as an example of how feminism needs to exist. Feminism needs to exist for a lot of reasons. Some asshole on 4chan basically randomly generating something unpleasant towards a woman who to a lot of people seems to just be taking advantage of a tidal wave.

She's not addressing real people or real beliefs. She's addressing total bullshit that is born from issues inherent to the internet that would find another avenue of escape if gender didn't exist as a concept. Awful people do awful things on every imaginable topic. Just as there is porn of everything, there is random awful shit said about everything.

Has she responded on Stealth-kiss-gate yet?

Given the context, if that's really what it was used for, which is to say essentially in the place of clip-art, it was an idiotic move because of course that would be misinterpreted. And I don't think she or her crew are stupid enough to slip up like that.

The issue with the industry is not enough females getting involved. I guess. But at the same time? If they don't want to be involved, don't. And also? Don't complain when you don't get involved and don't change things. A single outspoken critic with a shit ton of attention will do far less than a single invisible female voice at a developer. Girls need to get in on the action of developing games. And they are starting to. Encourage that, and you'll see change. Complain about misogamy and all you'll do is bring out trolls and assholes.

Representation is what female interests need in the industry. Once they get more representation in the industry, not on the outside looking in, they will have more influence and they will get further.

This isn't to say "it's their fault." Girls need to be given more opportunities to express an interest in the industry. And it would help if more games had content that interested them. But at the same time, do we complain that football is a guy's thing? Sure girls like it but the players are all male, the coaches are all male, the commentators are all male, the fans are a little more evenly split but the real fans are mostly males.

It's sexy to say "this industry is male dominated!" But we fail to remember that there are also female dominated industries and fields. Men and women are different. When they are ready to come together, they will. As women get more interested, they will get more involved. Until then, to some extent, the lack of female representation is just there. There's no one to blame for that aspect of it. And that aspect needs to be solved naturally, not forced into happening.

@jarmahead: Could you name examples of female dominated industries and fields?

I considered that, but if it's really as rampant as she wants us to believe (and I'm not saying it is or isn't), then one would think there are much better images to display, even just for dramatic effect. Like, why muddy up the message and open yourself to this kind of scrutiny?

@yinstarrunner:

I don't think the ultimate goal is to please any one person. She has criticisms, and a creator is free to listen to or disregard them as he or she sees fit.

I think a huge amount of the huff about her is just people not understanding that an academic critique isn't a mandate on high. Every year, tens of thousands of scholars analyze hundreds of thousands of works through hundreds of critical lenses. Hers became particularly visible because she put it online as a video instead of in a peer-reviewed journal, but it's the same thing.

If you disagree with her, you can shrug this off just as easily as you can shrug off some English professor's article on queer themes in The Great Gatsby.

But even if a creator followed her advice, what would happen?

No damsels in distress? A fully-clothed female protagonist? Fleshed out and complex female characters? The dead bodies of women not used as motivation?

None of those things make a bad video game.

@jarmahead:

The attackers from 4chan are real people who hold those real beliefs. A good chunk of Gamergate was largely a mobilization of those beliefs.

And death threats are something that a lot of women in video games have to face and be legitimately concerned with. With the personal information leaks from months ago, it stopped being just an internet thing that we can ignore and pretend doesn't exist. And in a post-Elliot Roger world, you never know when the guy who says he's outside of your apartment with a gun is telling the truth of full of shit.

@impartialgecko: Books come to mind. Women are significantly more likely to read than men.

Here's a stat from a genre I (as a gay dude) enjoy reading: Romance novels. Women make up 84% of romance book buyers. Is this inequality an outrage? And should we worry about the perpetuating of harmful stereotypes from them due to that?