A New Video Series About Sexism in Games Which Male Gamers Especially Should Share

After enduring several waves of laughably pathetic online trolling, death threats, and other nastiness from many sad, scared, anonymous males (summary here), Ms Anita Sarkeesian has plowed ahead undaunted and released her first Kickstarter-funded video on sexist tropes in videogames, which is fascinating and well-researched and you can watch it below here:

If you're a man who reads New World Notes and you agree with what she says -- and despite some quibbles here and there, I'd say she's overwhelmingly on point -- do me a favor: Consider sharing this video in your various social networks. (Including and perhaps especially Reddit.) Of course women will share it as well, and that's great too, but as a wise female gamer just told me:

"It definitely adds to it a bit when it's not just ladies posting it everywhere, which is sort of messed up... the silent majority of dudes aren't sexist a-holes, and the less silent they are about the fact the better." And not being silent starts with sharing videos like this. It will help lead to better games, and a better culture around games. 

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Comments

[Leo]

That video imo is a little bit of trolling. When I play those games(eg. Mario) during the 8-bit days, i never thought of the Damsel of Distress issue. it's always about gameplay( and sometimes graphics), it was about beating the level and bosses. I totally don't see any issues with the remakes and classic ports to pc and home consoles. I'm pretty sure the companies who port them are not thinking of sexism when they're making them. it's just about renewing famous franchises and making money and nothing to do with sexism.

[Vooper Werribee (Darren Green)]

This is a fantastic video. Shared it willingly! If only there were more talks that had such a well-researched and argued analysis of video games the field might actually start to mature as an artform. Thanks for the article.

[Adeon Writer]

I wonder how the recently released Tomb Raider reboot will fit into part 2.

[Frans Charming]

@Leo of course you didn't think about it. For one the trope was already firmly established in our culture, she went to great length to show this.

Her point is that this trope is repeated so many times that it becomes part of the culture where we think of women as incapable and need saving, and thus we easily and lazily repeat it with out thinking.

[Wolf Baginski]

I wonder what Rhianna Pratchett is going to make of Tomb Raider...

What I have heard, there are still problematic incidents in the story, but she isn't being Hollywood-dumb about them.

[Deoridhe Quandry]

This is the first of a long series, and in the end she will also be creating teaching tools and releasing them free to educational institutions, which is awesome.

[Jo Yardley]

As a woman in my (real) life, I have almost always been the one doing the rescuing and have almost never been the one in need of help.
I am the type that confronts criminals, gets into fights, helps police when an arrest is going the wrong way and break up scumbags if I feel their fight isn't 'fair'.
In short, I may look like a lady (I do), but I deal with trouble like a sailor on absinth.

And I've been playing computer games since they have been around and yes, it has always annoyed me when the woman in a game is the one being silly and dumb, just standing there waiting for help.
In movies too.
It is soooo often the woman needing help and the man helping here.
Yes it is part of our culture.
Yes I do like being rescued.
Yes I also like rescuing.
Luckily I've also seen positive change.
There are games and movies out there with female action heroes and women that at the very least stop screaming and crying in a corner and go help the hero fight someone by hitting the bad guy with a bottle over the head or something.
With games it is always the old issue; the people mostly making AND playing them are men.
When you are a man making games for men, it is understandable that you don't really think about what women will think about your game.
Especially in our culture.
However more and more women are starting to play games and are becoming verbal about the things we like and don't like.
But above all, the industry needs more women.
I've been a author, I've made movies and tv shows.
Next I'd like to be involved with creating some games.
Smart game studios hire women like me.
Very very small changes are needed to make 99% of games more interesting (or at least less annoying) to 50% of the world market.
That is a lot of potential income.

[Pie Psaltery]

Meanwhile...

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/dad-hacks-donkey-kong-for-his-daughter-princess-pauline-now-saves-mario/

Way to go, Dad!

[Cube republic]

The trope exists for a reason.

[Stone Semyorka]

A powerful video.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

The trope does indeed exist for a reason.

In a patrilinear culture, where property passes from father to son, women have to be constrained in order to assure paternity. Myth and story are tools of that repression, presenting the world as a place fraught with peril for any woman not under the constant protection of a man.

The trope is weak or absent in matrilinear cultures, in which inheritance passes through the maternal line. Because the mother of a child is (almost) always known, the paternity is of less concern and the motivation to control women absent.

Similarly, there is little evidence of it in cultures which have no "property" concept.

The saddest part to me is watching the psuedo-scientists that call themselves evolutionary biologists try to explain an arbitrary cultural construct of the Victorian and Romantic eras as having a genetic basis, with about the same degree of success that Social Darwinists use the same arguments to advance racist positions and policies. They don't have the objectivity to see that their natural order exists only in their own narrow cultural context.

[Cube Republic]

What about if you're a man and have been constantly stereotyped into being some kind of patriarchal male warrior hero in most video games?

[Cube Republic]

What about if you're a man and have been constantly stereotyped into being some kind of patriarchal male warrior hero in most video games?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I view the constraint of men into restrictive roles as the same issue as the constraint of women. You can't effectively address one without addressing the other.

[Cube Republic]

Who's doing the constraining?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Who creates culture? It's a collective work by everybody who reinforces it, even in small and seemingly inconsequential ways... like making a video game.

Men are an easy target, but in a very real sense they're also victims of cultural conditioning. Media portrayals of single dads, for example, make it very clear what society thinks of males who go outside their assigned role.