Feminism

You may have probably heard about the misogynistic display of the gaming community on the work of Anita Sarkeesian, sparked from her project "Tropes vs Women: Video Games", a video series aiming for criticising harmful genre conventions and making the issue of sexist depiction of women in video games more visible. I've always enjoyed her videos, being accessible to people of various degrees of knowledge on gender matters, and encompassing so many angles that, in a few phrases, she summarises each of the problems that arise from uncritical popular culture. Certainly, the project she is going to embark on will be a useful addition to feminist discussion.

Despite her credentials as a successful vlogger and the apparently inocuous nature of her work, she has been receiving an inordinate amount of smears, attacks and threats all across the web, on all of the platforms she uses, in an attempt to silence her. Some people would say that that's the nature of youtube, that trolls abound, etc, but that should never be an argument to dismiss the gravity of this assault. She even compiled one hundred comments from her video to show the degree and amount of sexism that she has had to deal with. I wouldn't have believed it had I not read it. To think that these anonymous internet trolls are real people you might pass by in the streets is appalling.

That this behaviour is intolerable has been discussed multiple times in the past few weeks. Except for those inhuman enough to participate in the vilification of a fellow human being, everybody agrees that the attack is contemptible and unjustified. But some of the participants in the discussion (most of them males, I assume, for the content of their message and the "entitlement signals" they make) argue that Anita's project is worthless.

These are several quotes from the youtube comment section and from the Escapist forums:

"There's a baby in Africa starving, because you chose to waste the money on the most jaw grinding display of sensationalism, I have ever seen. And you clearly have the loosest grasp of how to use sensationalism." (I love this argument. Whatever you say is unimportant since there are people with bigger problems than you. Let's go back to the cave and never discuss anything. Usually he who wields this argument doesn't care a bit about those starving kids himself.)

"mirror's edge. just sain. problem solved" (Thank you for giving us women one game that doesn't take part in sexism.)

"If you don't know who are bad female characters are in games, you have not played games. It is an issue, and everyone who is not misogynist knows it's an issue. But this idea is just a massive waste of money because the documentary is pointless - it's going to be, to use your words, some asshole making ridicule of obviously bad characters as an argument. This isn't going to sway anyone, this isn't going to inform anyone, this is just people pointing out obvious stuff that's been said 100s of times before." (Has it? Has anybody done something about it, since it's been discussed so much? Are we only allowed to criticised for a set amount of words, in case it would grow too big a complaint? As shown in the comments section, there isn't enough awareness of the issue, nor enough respect for women in the field of games.)

"Although asking for $6000 to discuss woman in videogames which others have already discussed by many people e.g. Extra Credits is a bit much." (Same as above.)

"I haven't watched a lot of this "feminist frequency", but from what I can gather it's another one of those that are overcalling "Sexism" if a woman dresses like a slut. Not that I believe that the view of women in games are top-notch, but these people (and oh, have I met them) seem to believe that horrible writing and power-fantasy = active discrimination based on your sex." (Sadly, people tend to think they can contribute to a discussion without knowing a thing about the subject, and they can't be bothered with reading up a bit before embarrassing themselves. Well, I'm going to break it to you, anonymous commenter, a power-fantasy in which a woman is objectified is discriminatory.)

Now take a look at these ones:

"I'd say it's more a problem with her one-sided approach that rails against video-game women conforming to stereotypes, while completely ignoring that video-game men conform to stereotypes just as much. And the fact that she's crowdsourcing videos, videos just like the one she made to advertise her solicitations, videos she'll make even more money on the ad revenue and traffic they'll generate." (She shouldn't make money from her work, how heinous! Women should be volunteering for nurses in the Great War.)

"If that is sexist then males are at risk too. All guys in video games are the super grizzled hero or the smart, weak, and fearful guy. Stereotyping is done to EVERYBODY not just women. It's not a big deal at all. Fucking grow up and deal with it."

This argument is one of the most insidious, and I would like to talk about this more extensively.

Apparently, many uneducated men are insecure about people who are not men/white/straight/whatever other privileged title they have, talking about their own concerns, which may or may not be related to them. They will always lead the discussion into the ambit that affects them, invalidating it when it doesn't. Even the most "good-hearted" men can be blamed on this, because it doesn't take a kind nature but a conscious, educated mind, to see that other people have experiences that differ from ours, and which are as valid as our own. Not only men, but since women are more conscious of oppression by having experienced it, they are more prone to empathize with the Other. But for the privileged, since the entire culture revolves around them (How many female heroes do we have in movies (not being sexualized)? Yes, that's a link to one of Anita's videos ;)), they believe they are at the centre, and the matters that do not affect them are useless to everybody. These are entitlement issues. The youtube comments and Escapist forums reek of them, and most people are not aware.

Actually, feminism does not only concern women, since many of the claims that feminists make affect men positively too. Except for those men who believe that they are the superior sex, of course. But I am talking about educated people (I am not entirely convinced of Socrates' theory that only the ignorant are iniquitous, because we see too many wicked but educated persons, but let's assume that Socrates was not wishful thinking there). If you are a man, and have at least one woman important to you (mother, sister, friend, whatever), you should wish that she received an equal and fair treatment, and not be deemed inferior. But not only the women around you would be happier if they were treated equally, but you would have more opportunities in fields that used to be restricted to women. Feminism also wants men to be able to child-rear on equal terms to women, for instance. And yet it is called feminism for a reason: since the male genre is the one that has the upper hand, feminism is mostly concerned with women's problems; problems which men seldom, or never, face (slut-shaming, age-shaming, objectification, discrimination at the workplace, rape, etc).

Some men are not comfortable with having feminism not be about them. They feel entitled to an equal degree of interest from feminists because "it's about equality, right?" It is, but certainly there would be no equality in talking about both men and women's issues in the same degree since women have it much worse, and although men face their particular problems, women's problems are more insidious and common, systematic and pervasive.

Regarding the discussion of male tropes (read this amazing piece by Doone on masculine power fantasies, please), the disparity between what concerns a woman and what concerns a man is made obvious. Whereas men are represented in a "good light" (the characters showcase an exemplary model for men to follow, although everybody should question the validity of said model), women are portrayed as objects to be obtained after a long quest (Mario rescuing Peach), as sexualised mannequins with one-dimensional personalities (so many examples and so few names that stick in our mind), or as strong but fragile heroines which need saving/directing from men (seriously, WTF).

We certainly need to call attention to these insidious tropes, since our culture is what constitutes our reading of society, unless we're critical enough about it. And even in that case, we are being unconsciously directed by what we have learnt without reflecting upon it. The discussion that Anita proposes can only be beneficial for the industry, seeing that so many people need educating on the subject. I cannot wait to frame further feminist topics with one of her videos.

I guess that, by now, everybody has heard about the claims of Effraeti about not being a feminist, the response at spinks' blog, and whole range of reactions in comments and other blogs (especially insightful is Apple Cider's, as always). I hesitated whether to make a post out of it or not bother. It is particularly difficult to write when you are angry and perplexed, as many of us were at the time. I shall follow the example of Apple Cider and voice my opinion in a calm and constructive way, because the topic deserves it.

I shall start with an anecdote which might appear to be off-topic. Bear with me.

A friend of mine sent me the trailer of the newest movie by Tim Burton, called Dark Shadows. I watched it, and when prompted to answer if I would like to see it, I said: "This movie offends me." My friend didn't see what was offensive about it, so I explained to him that I was fed up with the stereotype of seductive+evil women who use sex to entice men, and of men who are rendered helpless by this so-called feminine power. Of course, we would be expected to identify with endearing Johnny Depp and despise the evilly sexual woman. Tropes are used everywhere, for every topic: gender, race, sexual orientation... But some of them are more harmful than others, and when your depictions of women are either evil seductresses or innocent girls, there is not much with which real women can identify, and we risk teaching the kids values about feminism that are wrong. For more tropes and a very clear-sighted argument and entertaining videos, check Feminist Frequency.

I was talking with somebody only marginally conscious about his privilege, but willing to learn. We engaged in an exposition of feminist issues, and he understood why I saw things from other, more self-conscious, lenses.

The problem with privilege doesn't stop at economic factors, with women having less opportunities than men. It is also apparent in all cultural manifestations, especially in mass-entertainment. Films being customarily targeted at men, but still viewed by women, create a clima of masculine interpretation of society, both by men and women. Thus, masculine qualities are prized above the feminine, and a masculine understanding of universal concepts such as "strength" is proposed (see Spinks', the comment by Gevlon). This is why "strong" women are typically depicted in the media as sexualized badasses (Sucker Punch at Feminist Frequency). We need to broaden our scope, to be able to conceive our world from the Outsider's perspective. As Simone de Beauvoir expressed in The Second Sex: "She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute— she is the Other" (xxii).

Inequality goes beyond economics. It is a conception of the world. It dictates what femininity ought to be: seductive and evil, or innocent and unthreatening. The Angel of the House of the nineteenth century is now the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the perpetually kidnapped princess, the heroine whose only achievement is waking the male hero to a new world of love and feminine comprehension. Women should not be defined by their relation to the men of the stories, but it is sadly all-too-common. Even in the great Planescape: Torment, Deionarra and Annah, and to some extent Fall-from-Grace, are defined by their romantic ties to The Nameless One. It is a pervasive and unnoticed trend which our subconscious grasps better than us.

From a very early age we are bombarded with these concepts of womanhood, taught to be Snow White the passive, and despise the active Stepmother; taught that we are all princesses who deserve a sexy, understanding yet virile, strong yet sensitive prince. We are not taught that happiness lies in ourselves. We are especially forbid to think about other women as allies -princes are after all in short supply.

Men are also taught their own lessons. Some of them as horrific as the women's. That they should succeed no matter what, completely on their own, or they will be a failure, completely emasculated. That the path to success is through stark, aggressive competition. That their value is measured in what they own.

Then some women react in a predictable manner. I was one of those women. They shake off all these teachings and, also predictable, do a radical about-turn to the equally artificial world of masculinity, and assume that the doctrines imparted to men are the Evangelical Truth and femininity is apocryphal. But values such as "strength" are connotatively marked too, as I have argued before. These "New Women" reject one lie to fall prey to another one. And, in the process, they rebuke all women that they categorise as "feminine", and judge their attitude "weak", endorsing the position of the men who also believe such lie.

But the femininity they so proudly repudiate is in fact as fake as their new-found masculinity. It is a societal construct. An insidious societal construct, nevertheless, which women are expected to imitate, and sometimes do. This is why we work with prejudices when we encounter a stranger, because these prejudices sadly apply in many cases, especially when the other person belongs to that collective which hasn't challenged the mass-media indoctrination. But those are prejudices nonetheless, and they are offensive. To expect women to be over-emotive, even hysterical, is allowing yourself to be fooled by a reductionism. People don't work that way. We are complex, multi-faceted beings which receive influences from everything around us, and from our own reaction to said influences. Thus, although what is traditionally considered as feminine is very compelling, its contrary ("the tomboy") also is, and to extricate what we have been told to assume is really hard, because every day we learn new forms in which we had been "educated". We have learned, mostly on a subconscious level, that strength equals individuality, and that men are strong. We want to be like them, we want to be strong in the sense that society posits. We reject the weak, the feminine. We do not learn that femininity is also about communication, community, strength in the collective. About sensitivity, empathy, cooperation.

Human beings are psychologically constructed not in binary oppositions, as we are led to believe, but in gradations. Sex is not the same as gender, and sexual orientation is much more intricate than the three milestones that we have conventionally set. By this I mean that femininity and masculinity are not exclusive to women and men respectively, and that we should conceive them as sets of values traditionally subscribed to women and men. Both sexes are allowed to be rational and sensitive, competitive and cooperating, strong in their own individual manner.

Finally, these women who had allied themselves with the males to the detriment of their own identity, when confronted with the truth, let go their self-hatred, and accept that we are all in this boat together. That we all have been equally indoctrinated, and that there is a necessity to look beyond gender barriers.

This state of comprehension is not nirvana, but it is not the commonality either. The process that has been completed for some is still on-going for many, and their numbers seem unsurmountable (as sometimes is their willing ignorance). Some of those who have come out of the cavern, when they return to share their findings, they encounter skepticism, uncooperativeness, hatred. They respond with calmness, patience, compassion. But only after an internal process of purgation, after the anger stops its seething. Every time.

Their interlocutors argue that things are the way they are for one or another sad reason. Terrible, they acknowledge, but that is how the world works. The reason is rational and justified. We don't make games that cater to women because there is no market, and money drives everything. Women are poorer because they have kids. That is rational and justified, they argue. It is as if some people want the world to remain as ruthless as it is.