Scantily clad female characters

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That is a good point, I know IRL I couldn't just randomly initiate conversations with people or join in with them unless I know them...let alone have any kind of heated discussion(without the potential to get disproportionately upset and take it personally). But on forums like this its rather easy to join in a topic or start one and respond to responses. Also I can organize my thoughts better since I can re-read, make sure things are clear and correct mistakes, not so easy to do that verbally...

We live in a culture of victim blaming and rape apologists. When someone - anyone - receives a multitude of rape threats and the first reactions are not offense or acknowledgement of a problem but rather "oh, it's just a joke", "well, only a few people were sending those", "FYI, [the recipient] did this and this", "I personally don't know any gamers like that", etc., that's effectively excusing their behavior, which effectively enables it. Maybe I got a bit heated claiming that you were defending rape threats, but to be fair, you did use all of those excuses. Forget Anita, pretend its a girl you know: if she received an anonymous rape threat in the mail, would you attempt to use any of those lines? Maybe it's a threat sent in vain, but there's always the undeniable possibility that there will be at least one unhinged person who means it. Of course that one person doesn't represent the entire gaming community, but the social culture of gaming, which is frequently steeped in misogyny, is an ideal place to that person to stew in until they're ready to blow.

It doesn't matter who it was targeted towards. It doesn't matter what the context is. It doesn't matter if it was a handful of individuals or an organized group. What matters is that most women feel unsafe and objectified in both the gaming community and wider society, and several specific women were targeted and threatened at their own homes. That's inexcusable. Acknowledging it as inexcusable is a definitive step towards combating it.

You can't compare Anita to any random person because she is divisive public figure, like I said I'm sure Rush Limbaugh has had many many many death threats made against him over the years and its not okay but it kind of comes along with the territory. If you were some Christian video game critic who made the same argument against violence and was taken seriously by the establishment, you'd probably receive similar harassment.

I can't speak for women as far what they experience in the gaming community but I somehow doubt they receive a never ending stream of harassment and threats just because they're women so I think you're conflating two issues here. I think you're probably more likely to find creeper white knight 'perfect gentleman' types who can be even worse than your stupid "for the lulz" youtube commenters.

I never once said women are 'asking for it'...violent threats are not justified just because you don't like someones opinion. I acknowledged there is no justification for the incident referred to in this thread, even if a lot of people disagreed with what she said. Also I myself have experienced getting trolled to hell on the internet, didn't get as far as violent threats but they can be relentless and it can really feel all consuming and you have to get in perspective at the end of the day these are cowards hiding behind a screen and stop spending time on it....if it goes as far as death/rape threats then yes certainly go to the authorities or do what you need to protect yourself but otherwise responding to this kind of internet behavior is like throwing logs on a fire.

Also I brought up the 'slut shaming' since I know there are society norms that dictate women in minimal clothing are 'slu*ty' in appearance, so it would make sense some who take issue with scantly clad females in video games may take issue for that reason rather than because they feel it objectifies women, you know the moral compass. I was not claiming that implies there is no issue with sexualization of women, or that there aren't sexist gamers who cause problems withing the community towards females...however I think it would be wrong to find out someone is a 'gamer' and then just assume their a sexist, sexually frustrated would be rapist' Because some disgusting a**holes made threats over a gaming forum sever enough to require attention from authorities.

And changing something just so it reaches a bigger audience isn't always the desired goal...nothing wrong with that, but some games are directed at very specific audiences and to change it up too much for the sake of bringing in a larger audience would disappoint fans who have come to love the game. Like if they totally changed the game play of the game I've been playing, change the entire design, and totally alter the look of all the characters just to bring in more people I'd be pretty disappointed since I imagine that would mean simplifying it...which would render all the progress I've made learning the game play and getting better useless.

And funny satire, though I have to say I have not seen many games with armor quite that skimpy, but it is a fair joke about some games. Though I think League of Legends does it pretty well. The female champions that are fighters/battle damage types do have actual armour...the more skimpy clothed ones are usually mages or supports who are more meant to stay back from the bulk of the battle whilst damaging enemies/helping allies from further back(though not all the females of that type are scantly clothed) Or there is one called shivana who does not wear much, but she turns into a dragon(so obvious to say she's not a regular human anyways) so it would not make sense for her to have a ton of Armour anyways, hell might make more sense to have her naked since there isn't an animation for what little Armour she does have breaking when she changes form. There is also a little girl champion called annie, who's actually a total bad-a** but yeah not sexualized because she's like 12 and the game staff aren't disgusting like that. But I have seen some games where its like 'wow she should be wearing more'...so did have to laugh at the video.

Yes, I can, because she wasn't the only one who received threats. My GOD, she wasn't the only one who received threats. Did you not follow the GamerGate controversy whatsoever? There were only a small handful of women who were targeted at their homes, but online harassment of women in the gaming community has been a persistently pervasive problem for years. To say otherwise is to admit you've been burying your head in the sand. Hell, I can jump on Google and grab some major coverage of it even prior to GamerGate:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/27/1re ... -industry/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/se ... .html?_r=0
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18280000
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/g ... on-twitter
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/13/ ... gaming-age

You can't say, quote, "I can't speak for women" and then immediately speak for women. Obviously I'm not a woman, either, but I'm not trying to play myself as a victim of anything. One must decide whether they're on the side that protects women or the side that subjugates them.

It doesn't excuse the behavior to say you don't know gamers like that...I mean I wouldn't associate with a gamer like that if I did know one, not knowing any does not imply one would be ok with that behavior. And where do you get that most women in society over-all feel unsafe and objectified? I think it is a problem in our society....but I did not have the impression 'most' women currently feel this way in society or that most women in gaming feel that way about their male gamer counterparts are there some stats/studies on this? Of course it matters if most women feel that way, but do they?

When someone's first response to sexism in the video gaming community is incredulity because "I personally don't know any gamers like that", it's enabling. It's one thing to say that you simply don't know anyone like that, but it's an entirely different when you use that reasoning to deny that a problem exists.



The links I literally just posted weren't enough? Does nobody have Google? More importantly, do you seriously believe that men and women exist in perfect equality? I can immediately grab and throw links left and right, from online harassment - http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/o ... arassment/ and http://time.com/3305466/male-female-harassment-online/ - to workplace harassment - http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/20 ... arassment/ - or that our country's rape rate is considerably high for a developed country, in which upwards of 90% of rapists are men, but I'm not going to do anyone's homework for them. There are entire organizations dedicated to sexist discrimination, I suggest you start there.

Your links show females are more likely to face online sexual harassment than males(of course I imagine there are exceptions to the rule) and that young people are the most at risk demographic to experience online harassment/bullying. That does not really say most women in the United States feel unsafe and objectified most of the time...what i meant is their a statistical poll on the % of women who say that is their defualt feeling vs. those who don't feel that way? Though statistics even like what you have posted do leave out variables and other factors, so its never as simple as they show anyways. Not to mention they don't usually even survey the entire population they try to survey enough people of varying demographics/walks of life that represents the whole population so that causes some skewing to especially if they don't do that effectively. Not denying the issues you have presented but I think its a more complex issue that isn't specific to the gaming community, which makes it even worse....as it can seep into things like the gaming community or other communities.

You're directly asking me for statistics, then immediately negate the validity of statistics by saying they "leave out variables and other factors" and have "exceptions". Then you say you're "not denying the issues" I've presented? There's an inherent contradiction to your post...

If you're only going to nitpick whatever I present - and for a subject which was only tangentially related to my larger issue of sexism specifically within the gaming community and the events of GamerGate - then I respectfully ask of you to do your own research. If you can find any unbiased polls that indicate women are exceedingly happy and satisfied with the current state of gender politics, then I'll buy you a drink.

women being threatened with rape and violence outside of gaming culture? that doesn't have anything to do with this thread. I'm sorry, but I cannot continue this conversation if you're just going to be pretentious throughout your conversation with me. I know first-hand that can be a real problem with aspies, so I don't blame you for it. However, I have a problem with keeping my cool with pretense in combination with an adamant view on something. but again, I don't blame you, I just find it difficult to deal with.

just try not to twist my words for your own agenda.
that's all I can say. I'm done here.

What I know about the whole Gamergate controversy is basically Zoe Quinn cheated on her boyfriend with 5 other guys after making some dumb statements of her own saying that cheating was the equivalent to rape. Her ex-boyfriend publishes this, the insinuation becomes that she slept with video game "journalists" in exchange for good reviews on her game "Depression Quest"(sounds fun doesn't it?) which to be honest I don't care about since a lot of people would do the same if that was the difference between success and failure. That's more on the ethics grounds of these so called journalists not her. At this point one side is screaming harassment and the other is screaming censorship, they're probably both right. The #1 target for Gamergate seemed to be Gawker and Nick Denton to be specific, I remember them having a whole campaign trying to get sponsors to drop them and they were successful with a few. A lot of people latched on the Gamergate since they saw it as a means of waging e-war against Gawker and SJWs. SJWs have been antagonizing 4chan for a long time, trying to change it into a "safe place" as they do anything they deem a "boy's club" which also explains the interest in dictating the content of video games. I think this type of online activism has inflamed a lot of tension and created a ton of backlash, they have the same level of radicalism. I am not surprised by anything that happened, it all makes sense and was totally predictable.

I don't know how Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu got involved in this, both saw the opportunity to play the victim and couldn't pass it up. Anita I think is pretty smart and in it for the money, Wu I think is unstable and wants attention.

There comes a point in a conversation where if nobody can agree on the basic concept that "threatening to rape people is wrong", there's really no point in continuing.

You keep saying this but who is saying that it isn't wrong? Go report them to their ISP or the FBI, I don't care. I think they're a bunch of clowns who are probably like 15 but whatever do what you gotta do if you really feel threatened. Just because it is wrong to harass people for their opinions(or any reason) doesn't mean that they're right in their original argument. You can't make the argument that they're right because they're harassed and harassed because they're right.

Where did I say they were right? The entire principle of the matter, the sole point I was trying to make, was that women being threatened and harassed in the gaming community is wrong and indicative of pervasive sexism in the gaming culture and industry. That was literally the entire point of GamerGate. That point shouldn't be contentious. Responding to it with "oh, they were just joking", "well, this person said this and this so they had it coming", "only a *few* people were sent death threats", "well, I've personally never seen it, so I doubt it happens", etc. is completely trivializing the matter and is pretty much a slap across the face for women who are harassed online, regardless of whether or not they're public figures.

It's the kind of mentality that perpetuates rape culture. It's only slightly less abhorrent than people who respond to rape allegations with "well, maybe it was consensual", "she was probably a slut, look how she was dressed", "she was asking for it", "she just wants attention", etc., though it's in exactly the same vein.

The thing is, when I say "harassing people is wrong" and someone follows up with "Yes, BUT...", it's hardly an all-around agreement. There shouldn't be any "buts" in relation to agreeing that rape threats are unacceptable.

I'm not sure what you think the appropriate response is. Saying Gamergate involved divisive public figures is a statement of fact and I expect all divisive public figures like that to face a certain amount of harassment online, does that mean I endorse it? Of course not but context matters. You can't use it as evidence for your argument, Anita Sarkeesian being harassed doesn't make one thing she criticizes in her Feminist Frequency videos true. A lot of people deny that they're trying to make the argument that violent content in video games somehow influence real life violence but that is essentially crux of it all whether they admit it or not. They believe "problematic" female portrayals of women somehow leads to violence against women in real lie, I just reject that argument off hand when Jack Thompson made it who Anita and all her acolytes are the spiritual successor to.

GamerGate was not about Anita Sarkeesian. She was the catalyst to its media explosion, but the entire purpose of GamerGate was about sexism in video gaming: sexual harassment of females in gaming culture, sexist attitudes in the gaming industry, gender representation in video games...that's what it was about, not what one or two specific bloggers/developers had to say about it, though their extreme harassment is definitely a focal point. There's a bigger issue here, and you're focusing on only a small aspect. I don't think we're quite on the same page.

If I wanted to talk about Sarkeesian, I would. I've made not a single mention of anything she's said or any of her opinions, only using her in-person harassment as an example of the sexist extremism of GamerGaters. Continuing to explicitly focus on Anita Sarkeesian at the exclusion of the female gaming community as a whole is inadvertently trivializing all harassment which happens to all other women. Sarkeesian could've been a neo-Nazi for all I care, it still doesn't excuse rape threats. You brought up Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, what about Alan Berg? He was a controversial radio host who received occasional threats right up until he was actually shot to death by irate listeners. This is why threats can't be taken lightly or brushed off as "jokes", because there is always the potential psycho who would actually carry it out. We both agree that violence in video games does not breed violence in people, but that doesn't change the fact that there are still a handful of psychotic people who have committed crimes claiming they were influenced by specific games. As long as there are potentially unstable persons in the gaming community (and there clearly are), threats of rape should be treated seriously, with zero tolerance.