Males of Games tackles Sarkeesian's newest "Damsels in Distress" video

YetAnotherCommenter · 2013-06-02T15:13:29+00:00

A great blog post. It was very even-handed and polite, and showed Sarkeesian fairness and charity.

I was very shocked to hear Sarkeesian argue that men motivated by a desire to rescue a female loved one are allegedly doing so out of not valuing the loved one but out of duty to gender norms, and that revenge-on-loved-ones'-killers stories are really about men trying to reclaim their own masculinity after failing to be "real men." Seriously, Sarkeesian might claim to be against the gender stereotypes, but here she's absolutely reinforcing them.

In Sarkeesian's analysis, men don't love. They don't act out of loyalty or devotion or affection. They don't try to save or avenge their sisters, wives, girlfriends or daughters out of love. They do it out of a desire to prove their manhood, apparently.

Sarkeesian's analysis just reinforces the stereotype of men as having no capacity for love or warmth... that caring and affection and valuing other people are feminine things. Anita Sarkeesian is acting as an agent of the very gender system she claims to oppose.

"Fallen Hero" stories being really about social emasculation? Really? Love being nothing more than a rationalization for failed gender compliance? No, don't actually listen to the guy's stated motivation even if he repeats it over and over and over again - ignore the fact that Dom Santiago kills himself because without his family there is nothing left for him to live for even though the indisputably GAAAAR MANLIER thing to do would be to suck it up and keep fighting the war and avenge his family instead of mope - if a character is male, the character can't really love people! Its all about proving one's masculinity!

This is such a boneheaded argument. It is an absolutely archetypal case of putting theoretical frameworks before empirical facts (basically, its Cartesian Rationalism, or A Priorism). She's ignoring the evidence that the text places in front of her face and simply defaulting to feminist theory.

The fact that Sarkeesian managed to get so much backing for this project is just plain depressing.

drinkthebleach · 2013-06-02T08:47:50+00:00

What is this women's background anyways? To me she just seems like a personality, not really someone who should be representing women's studies or feminist theory. Most of what she says is just a trope in and of itself. College freshmen write research papers with better academic resources without such financial backing, and in a way that doesn't skew the contents of studies and blatantly insult academia in the process.

KRosen333 · 2013-06-02T16:52:53+00:00

Anita's back again, with the second part of her three-part series on the damsel in distress. Let's jump right back into it. Since this video deals with the deaths of characters, there will be spoilers throughout this blog post, mostly for older games but for some as recent as Bioshock Infinite. So read at your own peril.

Nope.png.

I love mens rights, but nobody is ruining any games I haven't played yet (I'LL FIND TIME FOR YOU YET, SYSTEMSHOCK2!!!)

Phototoxin · 2013-06-02T12:37:12+00:00

I'm not even watching it as I don't want to be annoyed. She is an idiot of the purest definition and should just be ignored until she goes away.

doomsought · 2013-06-02T15:54:04+00:00

I wounder how poorly she would do if confronted with the delightful subtleties of the first Bioshock game. Its all about agency, and choice.

2013-06-02T15:41:18+00:00

One year and then 2 months she has managed 2 parts of this series, yet others has created a virtual reality helmet and got working copies out to their major backers and interested devs, I guess that's easy compared to selective "facts" and biased ranting.

Thought she would have at least been up to the hate speech and belittling against gay men and transgendered people, what are we besides things to be twisted and used to suit her "cause" and tossed under a bus when it suits her for being male.

noodleworm · 2013-06-02T22:58:44+00:00

Found an interesting blog post on this topic, made some good points.

here is no fun way to be told “your favorite games aren’t very good at depicting women,” and she isn’t obligated to make it fun.

...

It’s that, far too often, their(gamers) response to stories about misogyny in gaming is to circle the wagons and defend gaming from external criticism, rather than address internal ugliness. Thus: Sarkeesian criticizes video games, gamer culture harasses Sarkeesian, gamer media critcizes gamer culture, therefore the problem is Sarkeesian and the media!

noodleworm · 2013-06-02T16:00:19+00:00

I really refuse to make as much of a fuss over this as everyone else does. I think its kind of confirming her beliefs for guys and gamers to make such a fuss.

She's an internet personality, who claims to be feminist.

(unfortunately thats not a club you have to sign up for and pledge to certain beliefs. Its just a bunch of individuals with different ideas that are roughly related.

She is an amateur pop culture critic that likes to make videos exploring tropes involving women in different media.
she is currently exploring tropes involving women in video games. She briefly played a bunch to see if the trope was there.
She showed that the trope is used a ton.

end of story. She even says herself it doesn't mean the games can't be enjoyed, its more of a commentary on lazy writing, we all love something with lazy writing from time to time.

I am still confused as to why other guys who already hate her will spend their free time watching and analyzing something they hate. The only reasoning I can guess it that a lot of people are getting way to obsessed with trying to make themselves feel superior to her.

thats just my 2 cents anyway..

Title	Males of Games tackles Sarkeesian's newest "Damsels in Distress" video
Author	Greyfeld
Upvotes	29
Comments	43
Date	June 2, 2013 7:50 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1fidl3/males_of_games_tackles_sarkeesians_newest_damsels/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/males-of-games-tackles-sarkeesians-newest-damsels.1172279 https://theredarchive.com/post/1172279

Comments