With all the hubbub going around about Anita Sarkeesian, I thought it was time that I sat down and watched her videos of Feminist Critique of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. So I sat down with Mrs. The Boots (@lochnessie82) to check them out. What followed was an interesting and, at times, uncomfortable analysis of my favorite hobby.

But that's ok. It's good, even.

Together, we watched the videos analyzing the Damsel in Distress trope, and how it has morphed into something altogether more vile and dangerous, and it really made me think about how my gender views have shifted as I've gotten older. I agree with virtually all of what she said in those videos, but at the same time, my perspective as different. Which is one of her points, I think.

When it comes to damsels in distress, I have to say that I like it. It's designed for me. I am a male and I like the notion that I can rescue a woman and it makes me feel masculine to protect my wife, which in turn helps my self-esteem. Living out fantasies like this is one of the things interactive media do best. Not only do I think that this is okay, I don't think Sarkeesian really objects to men getting to play games where we rescue women. She certainly critiques it, but her point has less to do with the notion of getting to save the girl and more to do with the way that it's implemented in virtually every scenario.

If there a few situations where women were helpless and had to be rescued, it would be a plot device and that would be the end of it. When virtually all stories involve a woman as helpless, it's not defining a story narrative, it's reinforcing an entire cultural narrative. In short: when a portion of the stories deliver a particular message about the role of women in society, it's just that-- a portion. Sarkeesian does a great job of showing that it isn't a portion. It's the norm. And when you normalize the concept of a helpless woman who can't do anything to save herself without a man, it delivers a message that any woman who experiences the story in either an active or passive role is being told countless times that she is powerless. Now I know that if everyone I encountered kept telling me that I was powerless, I'd lose hope pretty quickly. It's only natural that people are frustrated by this.

The second episode is a lot more problematic, but the general thoughts above still apply. In that video, Sarkeesian highlights modern, more "mature!" (hah) uses of damsels in distress, where the damsel does not survive her distress. She is either killed by the antagonist, or even sometimes by the player himself(intentional use of gendered word there). I feel like it's an exploitative and disgusting reinforcement of violence against the female character. It draws on the male desires to protect women. If it were one or two things, it would still be bad, but it wouldn't be a systemic endorsement of the concept. When it's as widely spread and common as Sarkeesian paints it, it (just as above) becomes a normalizing force that tries to legitimize violence against women. The most painful part of the video was when she rightly points out the parallels between the hero's heartbreaking decision to kill his loved one "for her own good" and the disgusting justifications used to justify domestic violence.

The thing that men have to remember is that while we face being occasionally called out for the things we do, society in general focuses on empowerment. Men who are not powerful are repugnant, so were are driven to power. Sarkeesian notes that the overwhelming forces that video games exert on women drive them towards powerlessness. They cannot help themselves. They cannot save themselves. They cannot even decide whether they themselves live or die. That power lies with men. And this is the norm, not the exception.

The exceptions are nearly nonexistent.

Sarkeesian seems to me to want to limit or eliminate the more violent abuses of this trope not by censorship, but by pointing out how much it reinforces some of the worst aspects of gender in our society. I think she's right.

What I don't think she's doing is saying that us boys can't dream of being able to rescue a girl, and be strong and masculine. We can still rescue the princess and get a smooch, guys. Relax.

She seems to be saying that women should be allowed to be heroes, too. Women should get to be powerful. Women should be allowed to rescue people in need. They shouldn't need a man, woman, or anyone's permission to act. They should stand in opposition to evil and face it down.

Sarkeesian wants to be able to be a hero too.

In my opinion that's exactly what she's doing.

As the latest Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run draws to a close, I'm reminded of Ryan, his life, death and how it affected me. You should understand, when my own grandmother died, I was sad-- but that's it. When Ryan passed, I cried like a baby. So did my wife. The fact of the matter was that we spend more time watching the Giant Bomb crew than just about anything else. Even though he never knew who I was, it was like losing a dear friend. In this, I am no different from anyone else here at Giant Bomb.

Here's where it gets different:

Early last year, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea. When Ryan tweeted a picture of himself wired up to an EEG, it looked exactly the same as one I took of myself only a short while before during my own sleep study. When he talked about adjusting to a CPAP, I commiserated, because I was going through precisely the same thing at the same time.

When he died, I deliberately didn't try to find out how he died since the information wasn't forthcoming, and it didn't seem right to dig any deeper. So that was that. Ryan was gone, and any similarities between us were now rendered moot.

Fast forward a few months to last November. For no reason in particular, I decided that maybe it would be okay if I checked to see if anyone had spoken out about how Ryan passed and I found out that it was pretty well accepted that he died from some kind of complication from sleep apnea. The pattern of similarities now had a very scary twist.

A great many things hit me at once. I had just checked my weight, and I had topped 300 lbs for the first time in my life. I thought about Ryan's widow's tweets following his death, and thought of my own wife writing similar messages if I kept following in his footsteps. I thought of the pain that Ryan's family and friends expressed, and what their statements would sound like if Ryan's name were replaced with my own. All of a sudden, the threat of death caused by my weight and lifestyle became more chillingly real than it ever had before.

And so, I made a decision that day. I couldn't let a death so great as Ryan's go to waste. His death held a potentially life-saving lesson for me, and to ignore it would essentially involve me turning my back on someone who worked so hard to bring joy to my life and the life of all of us in the Giant Bomb family. It would be downright disrespectful. I couldn't let that happen.

So here we are, four more months down the line. I watch what I eat and count my calories carefully. I have a treadmill that I use no less than four times a week. I'm up to nearly 4 miles per workout, half running half walking. I've started strength training on days that I don't run, too. In short, I've lost nearly 30 pounds, and I'm aiming for more. And every time I turn on the treadmill, and every time I grab the weights, and every time I say no to seconds when I'm not hungry it's Ryan's face that I see. His memory (along with the support of my wonderful and beautiful wife) gives me the strength to do the things I never used to be able to. I've kept it up for 4 full months. I have a long way to go, but I've started down this path, and I never would have even gotten started without the lesson Ryan taught me.

Ryan, I dearly miss you and the joy you brought to the world around you, but I honor your death in working to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to me and the people I love. As long as I keep going, I'm heading to a better, more stable place that I have been in years.

In a very real sense, you have saved my life.

Thank you.