Erm, no.

I feel her interpretation is really shoddy, and I hate how she seems to think that Joss Whedon constitutes a whole wave of feminism all on his very sparkly-assed own, and the way she baits her audience is atrocious.  Like, all the promotions for the series were like, "ooh, guys, let's investigate this strange new world of video games," and then she bitches when people characterize her as an outsider to the genre, criticizing it with only a minimal understanding of it, and IF THAT IMPRESSION IS WRONG, WHY DID YOU GIVE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

Ugh.

Not to mention that the way the videos are organized, there is no room for in-depth criticism, she's playing a numbers game.  Which, on its own, is a decent way to approach the subject, albeit not the one her degree applies to, but she's doing it in a way that is bad science.  It's fine to be like, "here's all these examples where this thing happens in this way," but if you want to prove a trend, you have to define your variables, and state your sample size, and give some idea about how your sample relates to the population you are sampling, and define your control group, so on and so forth.  AND SHE NEVER DOES ANY OF THAT.  I don't really think her interpretation of the trends would change, it would just sound more legitimately convincing and less like sensationalist bullshit.

So as social science, it's tripe.  But she never goes into any detail, so as literary analysis, it's ALSO tripe.  I honestly get the feeling that she decided on a more populist audience because she doesn't have what it takes to get by in the academic world.

Oh my god, I think this is kismesitude.  Me < 3< Anita Sarkeesian.  WTF.

That said, the response she got was completely unreasonable, and is representative of the cumulative worst of a) the internet (particularly YouTube) and b) gaming culture.  Which is a terrible thing, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and I'm also pissed (at the responders) because it shuts down any kind of overall reasonable criticism of her work.  Either you love her, like her, think she's a bit daft but respect her work, or are a slobbering idiot asshole.  GODDAMNIT, GUYS!  I REFUSE TO BE A SLOBBERING IDIOT!!

But I will be an asshole, because her shit is just not up to par.

Last edited by Kita-Ysabell (09-07-2013 12:13:54 AM)

So as social science, it's tripe.  But she never goes into any detail, so as literary analysis, it's ALSO tripe.

Hahahaha. Viscous. I think I'm inclined to agree with your reasoning though, although I could probably use a bit more time watching that stuff before forming any super-firm opinions.

As for the worst of the internet.... unless you're on rare islands where you're experiencing the best of the internet, I think the "worst" of the internet and the "average" internet are pretty interchangeable. Sadly. My experience in "gaming culture" is super narrow (my perspective is limited to like, two games, in one genre), but I think there's definitely some issues there as well. On the whole (with a few super-cool people interspersed throughout).

Last edited by Valeli (09-07-2013 02:11:15 AM)

...now I'm actually upset. We decided to give her another try, only to find that Sarkeesian slapped a great big misogyny sticker on The Void, of all things.

For those of you who don't know, The Void is basically a feminist parable; despite having damsels in distress (every female character) they also have dudes in distress (every male character) and the whole thing is basically about how patriarchy cages women "for their own good" and enslaves men, who then mutilate themselves in order to support the system. The whole point of the game is to overthrow that system! That the main character is male could be a mark against it if it wasn't for [the fact that he has to die in order to set just one of the women free]. Even the visuals call back to some very feminine imagery, the only "map" bearing a distinct resemblance to drawings of the uterus and fallopian tubes.

So, to sum up... DO YOUR FUCKING RESEARCH OR

This was just one example of the issues I had with the series in question (Tropes vs. Feminism), but I won't bother to try her again. Her points are badly supported and very often taken out of context, and quite frankly I think Feminist Frequency is more in line with the sort of horribly educated SJ Warriors I prefer to avoid.

Yasha wrote:

We decided to give her another try, only to find that Sarkeesian slapped a great big misogyny sticker on The Void, of all things.

She did what?

Yeah, somehow I missed that.

That is some pretty immense bullshit right there.

Not to mention that The Void comes from a significantly different cultural context, which doesn't mean that it can't reinforce patriarchal tropes, just that you need to give it a second look, and interpret the content from both viewer-based and producer-based perspectives.

Wait, was this one of her one-line analysis from the Tropes vs. Women series?

'Cause The Void is a strange, complicated, surreal game, and it takes way more than one line to interpret, or even make any real comment about anything that happens there.

Rrrggh.  Just... rrrgggh.

Pretty much what everyone's said so far is true.

When I first heard about her, I thought it was neat. But the first videos were a bit...lame. Then the whole "fundraising" BS and other stuff I saw just lost me.

Sarkeesian, is, sadly, a hack.


If anything, there are many feminists out there whose name aren't known because they don't have the resources she has, and who address important subjects like actual exploitation of women in the real world, sexual slavery, war rape, and everything else we always see in the news.

This is kind of shallow, but the main reason I haven't actually watched her videos much is because her facial expressions kind of annoy me. ; At least I'm not missing much, I guess.

At the same time I also get annoyed at some of her detractors. Got to love it when both sides suck, eh?

So there was a new one, and I did a thing.

Not so much saying anything new.  Well, a bit new.  But mostly just in a different place.  Virtual place.  Whatever.