I find it interesting how quickly discussions like this are quickly and effortlessly derailed from the topic. Instead of discussions of sexism in games, in this case, or racism or homophobia or other topics along those lines we will jump to all the things surrounding it. We'll talk about who's talking about it, we'll talk about the platform they're using, how anyone could do a better job, how it's not enough, how it's too much, and somehow avoid completely the topic at hand. That's just something to think about. Both in the podcast and in this thread there isn't a lot of discussion of sexism in games.
First of all, I'm delighted that you're here talking about this with us! You could've easily had these thoughts in private, but sharing them publicly allows just the sort of community awareness and discussion that I think we all want.
As to avoiding the larger direct topic of sexism in videogames, game culture, and game industry, I'd like to say that that was perhaps intentional and I am to blame for that. I wanted this segment to have time to address the actual video that Sarkeesian prepared, so I advised the participants beforehand to try to focus on things in Sarkeesian's actual work that they responded to.
I suggested this format because I, like you, was tired of distractions: but I was tired of all the larger topics drowning out the actual things Sarkeesian was saying in the video. I To be fair, I tried to start off the segment by talking about the context of the work, but I saw this as a segment focused on what Sarkeesian was actually objectively saying, not about all the other things that tended to distract from her actual work, and I'd like to think that once we started talking about the video itself that's what it was.
Perhaps it'd be possible for you to categorize this smaller focus as a missed opportunity instead of an effort to avoid discourse? What would you like to see specifically addressed in possible future segments? I'm eagerly hoping we can return to this discussion as Sarkeesian releases more videos.
And I have a major gripe with the podcast talking about being disappointed the comments were turned off. People aren't just making jokes about sandwiches and kitchens. She received hundreds of rape and death threats. You guys just kept talking about the comments and such like people were only doing playful ribbing and that is just not the case. There would be no discussion on the youtube page, it would just be an endless barrage of rape threats. It happens all the time. Whenever people choose to talk up about these sorts of topics large groups of other people respond, not with jokes, but with violent threats, and it's perfectly reasonable for someone to not want to deal with that all day every day of their life.
In our defense, I think that we did all acknowledge that having the comments turned off was a good move based on what the internet was capable of. If I said things that made it seem as if I was belittling the problems she was facing, I hope you accept my apology.
Would it be fair to say that you feel that when I generally describe the backlash as "degrade, discourage, and discredit", but fail to go into specifics, that I don't convey the enormity of the reaction? Would you consider my attempt to put things "politely" a form of white-washing?
It's also trivializing to continue to talk about how small a percentage of people do this sort of thing, when it's actually a part of video gaming culture.
I'll have to re-listen to the podcast, but I don't think I remember anyone saying that this was just a small part of the gaming population that did this?
The people on the podcast talked at length about how defensive they were at things that aren't even slights. When you have that attitude already you're not going to be a part of anything that gets people to stop issuing rape threats over this kind of stuff. So while not everyone is being that vile, we're all a part of a community that encourages it. We dismiss it as not being a lot of people, we dismiss it as not being that bad, we say people should be forced to deal with it and when confronted about our hobby we get defensive and wont' deal with criticism and that sort of silence works right in conjunction with the not as few people as you want to think who are doing a lot more than just telling her to get back in the kitchen.
I personally am of the opinion that changing these sorts of attitudes involves acknowledging, airing, and discussing our different viewpoints and emotional reactions, including where we feel sensitive and defensive. I think having a safe place to discuss those sorts of things will encourage understanding on both sides of the issue, for both the people Sarkeesian's videos are targeted to as well as those trying to create similar works.
I agree with you that the larger issue of sexism extends to some endemic problems in gaming communities. During the video, I even briefly mention other surrounding topics, like the #1ReasonWhy Twitter campaign (
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/1reasonwhy-reveals-sexism-gaming-industry_n_2205204.html) and sexual harassment at a fighting game tournament (
http://www.destructoid.com/sexual-harassment-and-fightin-drama-together-at-last--222877.phtml).
Honestly speaking, that sort of larger topic is one I'm very interested in exploring, even if for this segment I constrained my focus to Sarkeesian's video.
Do_What, I hope you believe that we honestly didn't intend to diminish or avoid a lot of the issues of sexism in videogames. I hope you believe that we tried to approach this discussion in an open and even-handed manner.
That said, I am also interested in hearing your criticism: where do you think we fell short with this discussion? What topics are you interested in seeing addressed if we do another one like this in the future?
Topic: Episode 78: Tropes vs Connectivity (Read 8374 times)
