Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women in Video Games

[bigfield]

Third one: I'd like to see this study because it sounds like... bullshit. What are they measuring? How do they measure it? I'd love to see how that experiment was designed. Red flag "the first study of it's kind". That's not what you want to see in a study. How is it different? The proteus effect has been studied before. So it's not that. Ok, fine. So it's an experimental study. 86 women were studied? Was there a control? What was the difference between the control and the subjects. The proteus effect creates a warped self image that is adjusted back to normal over time, or after reality fails to acknowledge your warped self image. So I don't understand why this would be at all relevant to 1) the study and 2) Anita Sarkesian.

The article's conclusion admits that "[f]uture studies need to clarify the extent of these effects", which is just a more subtle way of saying that the study only studies the subjects' immediate responses.

In sum, this study has demonstrated that women can be affected negatively by the avatars they wear. Women may be at risk for experiencing self-objectification and developing greater rape myth acceptance, and these attitudes may influence their behaviors both on- and offline. Future studies need to clarify the extent of these effects as well as how avatars can be used to elicit positive changes in attitudes and self-image. In the meantime, users of video games, online social worlds, and other virtual environments should be made aware of the potential effects and implications of the avatars they embody.

http://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf

 

[Arctish]

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.755



Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103185710220

The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars

Sci-Hub:
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321200369X

Stanford:
http://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf

Thank you bigfield. The links are much appreciated.

 

[bigfield]

The relationship between Sarkeesian's statements and the statements in the linked literature resembles a broader pattern political discourse: people who want to make a political point will state a claim with certainty, but the science they cite (if they even bother) is typically far more reserved and careful in the claims that it makes.

It's not just the social sciences, either: people have claimed that physics papers prove their claims about deities, free will, and other woo. It's also important to recognise the difference between what a scientist believes (and what they say in blogs and interviews) vs. the evidence and arguments they present in the literature.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Part of that context is culture.

Did you ever watch The Birth of a Nation? I realize you're not from the US and perhaps don't know KKK mythology. Even so, do you think some audience members might have had their prejudices reinforced?

I'm not making a case that we can't be affected by media. It's just a hell of a lot more subtle and indirect than the viewer blindly agreeing with everything they see.

Or to turn it around... if movies and videogames are so good at brainwashing us, and it is all pervasive, how come Anita Sarkesian hasn't been brainwashed by it? She's part of the same culture. What makes her so special? Perhaps we aren't affected by it in that way? So then she has no point.

I hate the common liberal idea that we uniquely see the light, and the truth, and if everybody was as smart as us, then the world would be a better place. It's just narcisstic to view the world that way. And... above all... that's not how it works. We're not so easily brainwashed.

Perhaps the root of the early 20'th century KKK resurgence was something else than that film? The Germans hadn't seen it, yet managed to become raging genocidal racists just fine on their own.

She does interact with critics. But she doesn't allow her You Tube or Feminist Frequency pages to be overrun with trolls and hate speech.

I'm listening? So where is it? All I see is that she just labels her critics as trolls and dismiss their views as hate speech. I'm convinced she'd label my views as hate speech. All discussions I've seen her in is discussions where everybody largely agrees. I'd like to see her debate somebody with polar opposite beliefs.

Something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxYimeaoea0

Sarkeesian regularly appears at forums and moderated discussions to talk about her work and answer questions. But for some reason, by not allowing death threats, rape threats, and verbal abuse to dominate the discourse, she's accused of not wanting to talk at all.

It's like the guys who threaten to rape, mutilate, and kill her think they're the injured party when they can't post their threats on her webpages, and other guys think "Hey, you're right. She isn't letting you express how much you want to skull f**k her! That's censorship! OMG what a BITCH!!"

This is so childish. Nobody expects her to put up with that. Obviously.

I'm not saying that trolls aren't saying this to her. But I don't think she's special. Anybody famous on-line gets this. Men and women. She's not special. Yet, somehow those other celebrities manage to take part in debates with their oponents just fine. Without playing the victim card.

This is a wider critique of gender studies in general. There's no other university field of study, where you have to agree with the conclusion before you start the inquiry.

Is that a real rule or did you make it up yourself?

Gender studies isn't studying about women generally. It's a field with a very narrow application. It's a philosophical tool. The point of gender studies is to take a given stance (ie that patriarchal structural opression has resulted in stuff) and then analyse the world with that lens. Having that attitude can be great in shifting perspectives and see new things. Like what Derrida did with deconstructionism. But you have to understand this when you read gender study litterature, or you will not understand what you are reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_studies

I'm a big fan of gender studies. I've read all the big works. It's still just what it is. You can't apply it outside it's domain. At best their findings are food for thought. Something that sociologists or psychologists can take and run with.

You said her work was undeserving of the attention it gets. Then you said she deserved all the dislike and criticism she got. You felt that hate was too strong a word for it even though you know about the death threats, rape threats, the Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian game, and similar expressions of enmity. You suggested reading the work of other feminists instead of watching Sarkeesian's series. You used the word boring to describe it. Now you're saying she deserves to be judged even more harshly while maintaining her work is exceedingly shallow.

It's very confusing. Like you're saying she deserves to be hated for doing a poor job of highlighting sexism in video games but implying she deserves to be hated for even mentioning it.

Aren't you next going to ask if I've stopped beating my wife?

Just because I think she should get more criticism than she gets, doesn't mean I condone the death and rape threats against her. Which... again... doesn't make her special. It's just the result of how Internet works. It's nothing to get worked up about. If you're a public person, you need to be able to separate criticism that matters, and trolling. She seems to lack that skill. But a skill you need if you are to survive as a public person.

The genuine thoughtful criticism I've seen against her has been super nice. And not half as harsh as it could have been. I'm thinking random youtubers I've seen.

Just stop the black/white thinking. It doesn't become you. And it's silly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, done. Thanks for the link. It turned out to be a solid study. But that study just supports that men and women are inately psychologically different. Not that culture (games or otherwise) has influenced us. So still no support for Sarkesians argument. I've seen a study where men think women with big tits are more stupid than women with small tits, because when they speak to the big tittied women, they have trouble concentrating on what the woman is saying. Is that because of culture or biology? Claiming that this is learned behaviour would be bizarre. Just think of the evolutionary pressure that put the tits there to begin with. An essentially useless and dysfunctional piece of biology. Big tits offer zero advantage to the female other than it makes men happy to look at and squeeze. There's zero relation between ability to produce milk and the size of the breast. It's essentially peacock feathers.

There actually might be something to it--in my experience women with looks tend to use them to get what they want instead of using their brains.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Well, done. Thanks for the link. It turned out to be a solid study. But that study just supports that men and women are inately psychologically different. Not that culture (games or otherwise) has influenced us. So still no support for Sarkesians argument. I've seen a study where men think women with big tits are more stupid than women with small tits, because when they speak to the big tittied women, they have trouble concentrating on what the woman is saying. Is that because of culture or biology? Claiming that this is learned behaviour would be bizarre. Just think of the evolutionary pressure that put the tits there to begin with. An essentially useless and dysfunctional piece of biology. Big tits offer zero advantage to the female other than it makes men happy to look at and squeeze. There's zero relation between ability to produce milk and the size of the breast. It's essentially peacock feathers.

There actually might be something to it--in my experience women with looks tend to use them to get what they want instead of using their brains.

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, done. Thanks for the link. It turned out to be a solid study. But that study just supports that men and women are inately psychologically different. Not that culture (games or otherwise) has influenced us. So still no support for Sarkesians argument. I've seen a study where men think women with big tits are more stupid than women with small tits, because when they speak to the big tittied women, they have trouble concentrating on what the woman is saying. Is that because of culture or biology? Claiming that this is learned behaviour would be bizarre. Just think of the evolutionary pressure that put the tits there to begin with. An essentially useless and dysfunctional piece of biology. Big tits offer zero advantage to the female other than it makes men happy to look at and squeeze. There's zero relation between ability to produce milk and the size of the breast. It's essentially peacock feathers.

There actually might be something to it--in my experience women with looks tend to use them to get what they want instead of using their brains.

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

But women are more able to use looks to get others to do their bidding.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

But women are more able to use looks to get others to do their bidding.

I'd like to see a comparative study of that. Good looking guys are also pretty damn good at getting women to do things for them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

But women are more able to use looks to get others to do their bidding.

Trump is obese and gets good looking women to sleep with him.

 

[repoman]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

But women are more able to use looks to get others to do their bidding.

Trump is obese and gets good looking women to sleep with him.

Using money (or the perception of wealth if he is actually a fraud) to get women is sort of the converse (correct logic term?) of women using sex appeal to get what they want.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

But women are more able to use looks to get others to do their bidding.

Trump is obese and gets good looking women to sleep with him.

Money is very effective at this.

 

[rousseau]

Well, done. Thanks for the link. It turned out to be a solid study. But that study just supports that men and women are inately psychologically different. Not that culture (games or otherwise) has influenced us. So still no support for Sarkesians argument. I've seen a study where men think women with big tits are more stupid than women with small tits, because when they speak to the big tittied women, they have trouble concentrating on what the woman is saying. Is that because of culture or biology? Claiming that this is learned behaviour would be bizarre. Just think of the evolutionary pressure that put the tits there to begin with. An essentially useless and dysfunctional piece of biology. Big tits offer zero advantage to the female other than it makes men happy to look at and squeeze. There's zero relation between ability to produce milk and the size of the breast. It's essentially peacock feathers.

There actually might be something to it--in my experience women with looks tend to use them to get what they want instead of using their brains.

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

Not really. Nice clothes are a show of wealth/health. Not too much of a leap for the human mind to go from considering the features of naked body, to the features of a clothed body.

Just ride public transit in dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie in a classically poor city, and you'll see what I mean.

 

[bilby]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

Not really. Nice clothes are a show of wealth/health. Not too much of a leap for the human mind to go from considering the features of naked body, to the features of a clothed body.

Just ride public transit in dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie in a classically poor city, and you'll see what I mean.

I did an informal test of this by accident; I was doing some shopping for a gift, and went into a large electronics store on my lunch break wearing my usual casual clothes; I didn't find exactly what I was looking for in the limited time available, so I went back the next day at the same time, but on that day I had some meetings with customers, so I was wearing a business suit and tie.

On my second trip to the same store, at the same time of day, I couldn't take two paces without a salesman popping up out of nowhere to ask if I needed any assistance. Not one salesman had approached me the day before - obviously they decided I couldn't afford to buy something that would earn them a worthwhile commission, unless I was wearing a suit.

 

[rousseau]

I think that's true for both genders. Naturally good looks is associated with all manner of positive traits, both physical and psychological. So being superficial, isn't actually superficial.

One thing I wonder about is good taste. I find a woman who can dress herself well increadibly attractive. Women often say they like a well dressed man. Is that learned or inate? I find it hard to imagine nature provided much in the means for people to decorate themselves with, back in the day. Other than the odd feather or tooth. So it's a puzzling feature of human society.

Not really. Nice clothes are a show of wealth/health. Not too much of a leap for the human mind to go from considering the features of naked body, to the features of a clothed body.

Just ride public transit in dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie in a classically poor city, and you'll see what I mean.

I did an informal test of this by accident; I was doing some shopping for a gift, and went into a large electronics store on my lunch break wearing my usual casual clothes; I didn't find exactly what I was looking for in the limited time available, so I went back the next day at the same time, but on that day I had some meetings with customers, so I was wearing a business suit and tie.

On my second trip to the same store, at the same time of day, I couldn't take two paces without a salesman popping up out of nowhere to ask if I needed any assistance. Not one salesman had approached me the day before - obviously they decided I couldn't afford to buy something that would earn them a worthwhile commission, unless I was wearing a suit.

When I was doing my first programming internship the office was located in one of the poorer areas of town, and that was a time in my career when I wore a tie and nice clothes to work pretty regularly. I also took public transit every day. The looks I got from young women on the bus were pretty much constant.

I recall hearing a comment many years ago that people underestimate how attractive a person can be by simply being both a) healthy looking and b) young. Nice clothes take it a step further by implying that a person is financially healthy, which these days is arguably more important than strict physical health. Because if you have money you can comfortably raise kids.

I hate to go there but clothes are pretty much analogous to shows of display by any other animal. People have been using them as an indicator of their status for centuries.

 

[bilby]

I did an informal test of this by accident; I was doing some shopping for a gift, and went into a large electronics store on my lunch break wearing my usual casual clothes; I didn't find exactly what I was looking for in the limited time available, so I went back the next day at the same time, but on that day I had some meetings with customers, so I was wearing a business suit and tie.

On my second trip to the same store, at the same time of day, I couldn't take two paces without a salesman popping up out of nowhere to ask if I needed any assistance. Not one salesman had approached me the day before - obviously they decided I couldn't afford to buy something that would earn them a worthwhile commission, unless I was wearing a suit.

When I was doing my first programming internship the office was located in one of the poorer areas of town, and that was a time in my career when I wore a tie and nice clothes to work pretty regularly. I also took public transit every day. The looks I got from young women on the bus were pretty much constant.

I recall hearing a comment many years ago that people underestimate how attractive a person can be by simply being both a) healthy looking and b) young. Nice clothes take it a step further by implying that a person is financially healthy, which these days is arguably more important than strict physical health. Because if you have money you can comfortably raise kids.

I hate to go there but clothes are pretty much analogous to shows of display by any other animal. People have been using them as an indicator of their status for centuries.

Indeed. There's a whole other thread worth of discussion about the shift from flamboyant and colourful to uniform and subdued formal clothes for men since WWI.

When Victoria and Albert married, the society papers spent as much time discussing the minutiae of his outfit as they did hers. These days, the groom always wears a suit, or a military uniform. While the style details do vary a little from decade to decade, departures from the style worn by all other men at the time are vanishingly rare for all formal occasions, including the workplace (Blue collar workers often wear bright colours, but as a safety rule, not a style choice).

A woman arriving at a formal event to find another woman wearing a very similar outfit to hers, is mortified at her faux pas; A man arriving to find that he is wearing a very dissimilar outfit from the rest of the men, is similarly mortified.

Humans are strange beasts.

 

[Arctish]

I just watched Women as Background Decoration Part 2 again.

Friendly reminder: it's extremely NSFW

It's much like Part 1. There's plenty of clips depicting the trope Sarkeesian is highlighting, and most of them are pretty nasty. The female NPCs in those games really are there just to be murdered.

Her commentary in this installment is less about the writings of others and more about her own opinion. You can probably guess by now how she feels about missions that will only reward players after a female NPC is dead and will call it a failure if the character prevents her murder.

I did chuckle a little at this:

This dominant narrative surrounding the inevitability of female objectification and victimhood is so powerful that it not only defines our concepts of reality but it even sets the parameters for how we think about entirely fictional worlds, even those taking place in the realms of fantasy and science fiction. It’s so normalized that when these elements are critiqued, the knee-jerk response I hear most often is that if these stories did not include the exploitation of women, then the game worlds would feel too “unrealistic” or “not historically accurate”.

What does it say about our culture when games routinely bend or break the laws of physics and no one bats an eye? When dragons, ogres and magic are inserted into historically influenced settings without objection. We are perfectly willing to suspend our disbelief when it comes to multiple lives, superpowers, health regeneration and the ability to carry dozens of weapons and items in a massive invisible backpack. But somehow the idea of a world without sexual violence and exploitation is deemed too strange and too bizarre to be believable.

I agree with her here:

The truth is that objectification and sexual violence are neither normal nor inevitable. We do not have to accept them as some kind of necessary cultural backdrop in our media stories. Contrary to popular belief, the system of patriarchy has not existed for all of history across all time and all cultures. And as such it can be changed. It is possible to imagine fictional worlds, even of the dark, twisted dystopian variety, where the oppression and exploitation of women is not framed as something expected and inevitable.

I don't know if those games would be as popular or as profitable, but I'd play them a hell of a lot sooner than I'd play Grand Theft Auto.