Woman Who Criticizes Violence Against Women in Games Now in Hiding Due to Real Death Threats from Gamers

Some very scary threats have just been made against me and my family. Contacting authorities now.

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 27, 2014

The best evidence Anita Sarkeesian is basically right in her videos about sexism in games, it occurred to me yesterday, is any time they're posted, you wind up with long comments from angry males complaining about her anonymously online, almost invariably making assertions that are patently inaccurate or ridiculous, if not outright wrong.

There's a much darker point of evidence: Anita Sarkeesian is the constant target of death threats from angry male gamers, the most recent of which happened after her latest video went online.

Warning: Video may provoke some male gamers to irrational anger or violence

Anita Sarkeesian has never called for censorship of games, is a gamer herself (as she frequently says), and instead, only calls for better games. Why, then, must she literally need to flee for her life from threats of actual violence, as if she was a civil rights activist in a repressive culture?

I’m safe. Authorities have been notified. Staying with friends tonight. I’m not giving up. But this harassment of women in tech must stop!

— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) August 27, 2014

Answer: Because she is one.

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Comments

[Dave]

I appreciate the effort by Ms. Sarkeesian, but I wish she'd highlight games that do it right in addition to railing against games that do it wrong. Maybe she does somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

The problem is that the studios that she's upset with know what they're doing, they just don't care. In fact, inciting moral outrage is precisely the point of producing content like that. From watching her videos, I'm now very familiar with the very brands she'd like to suppress, and I've learned nothing about brands that get it right.

It's not even like you have to look very far to find good examples. Portal (Chell), Metroid (Samus), Half-Life 2 (Alyx Vance) readily come to mind, and I'm sure there are a great many I've never even heard of.

[Iggy]

I'd love to see a few of these dorky basement-dwelling misogynists share space with a few loving cell-mates.

American civilization is sick: celebrate graphic violence in entertainment? Free speech. Shoot up a school? Right to bear arms.

Show a nipple on TV? National outrage.

[Frans]

Not sure if a rhetorical question or not...
"Why, then, must she literally need to flee from threats of actual violence, as if she was a civil rights activist in a repressive culture?"
As if? She is what you just described.

@Dave sure there are some games who get it sometimes right. That doesn't negate that the majority of the games do not. Maybe talking about it, will start a change, as it often does.

[DeigntoPost]

@Iggy

Read what you said: I'd love to see a few of these dorky basement-dwelling misogynists share space with a few loving cell-mates.

American civilization is sick.

Wishing violence in retaliation. Hmmm now how does one wrap their head around that? You speak about it in a fashion as to exclude yourself but judging by what you said and only that, you're no different.

Anyway whomever is making threats should have their butts nailed by law enforcement. Everyone has a right to their say but not threats. That is a step too far.

[Iggy]

@DeigntoPost, true. Gut spoke first, followed by head.

Head also says that these twerps need to be arrested, shamed before family and employers, and prosecuted.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Anybody who responds to a point of view they don't like with a threat of physical harm or death is suffering from a serious mental illness and needs to be under treatment and constant observation.

Anti-psychotics may be more to the point than prison rape.

[Anais]

@Dave, pointing out "what's right" is not her fucking job.

[Wagner James Au]

She actually does point to a very interesting indie game (Papo & Yo) as an example of a right way to deal with violence. I believe she's praised Portal before too.

[Deoridhe Quandry]

I appreciate the effort by Ms. Sarkeesian, but I wish she'd highlight games that do it right in addition to railing against games that do it wrong.

Part of her kickstarter stretch goals was an episode on games which do it right. She also highlights one of them in the episode linked above. She is going about covering all of the tropes systematically, and since it will be an extensive series of about, I believe, twelve tropes, it might make more sense to lament what she didn't cover after she's actually finished with all of the episodes. Already she's broken a single trope into several videos, which implies we'll get a lot more than twelve total videos. I'm also looking forward to seeing the classroom material she's preparing and will be releasing for free.

It continues to astonish me that people continually reference the same five or six games when disparities in representation are pointed out, as if that isn't actually evidence that proves the disparities exist.

I have found myself as friends with misogynists. Dismissing all of them as either youthful or as somehow disempowered and pathetic ignores the extensive and systematic social disadvantages women have, both within video games and in the many other venues in which becoming notable results in continuous and unending death and rape threats, and the men in power who maintain those disadvantages, both through not hiring women, not respecting the women they've hired, and enabling the violent language used in a variety of ways.

Claiming misogynists don't have power is a way of dismissing the valid and realistic experiences women have.

[Jane Primrose]

Arcadia Codesmith: That's quite insulting to the majority of people with mental illnesses, who do not threaten or harm others. Misogyny is not a mental illness. Being physically or verbally abusive does not mean a person is mentally ill. While some mentally ill people may display this kind of behaviour, a lot of the people who do it are not ill at all. They are bullies who want to have their own way in everything, and to silence anyone who wants something different. They may have defective habits of thought that lead them to behave this way, but that is not the same thing as being mentally ill. For a more detailed explanation of this, I recommend the book 'Why Does He Do That?' by Lundy Bancroft. It deals chiefly with situations of domestic violence, but the principles Bancroft describes clearly apply to this situation as well.

[Sam Peters]

"The best evidence Anita Sarkeesian is basically right in her videos about sexism in games, it occurred to me yesterday, is any time they're posted, you wind up with long comments from angry males"

I fail to see how that is a benchmark that Anita is right. And it's misleading because it's not all 'males' (thanks for using a biological emphasis of male rather than men) that have issue with what Anita says, plenty of women do too. I won't condone the threats that's wrong on any count, but alot of the backlash people like Anita get is for their distortion of reality into some extremist view. Long gone are the days of sensible feminism, now it's just an extreme character with buzzwords like 'rape culture', 'slut-shaming', 'mansplaining' 'patriarchy', and unfortunately NWN seems to jump on the band wagon. It's not nuanced sophisticated arguments it's just artificial to and fros based on straw men and the assertion that to disagree with any feminist makes you a mysognist.

My favorite 'mansplainer' is Warren Farrell who not only championed second wave feminism, was elected three times to the Board of Directors of the National Organization for Women in NYC, has written 7 books on women's and men's issues, who is both a feminist and masculinist but switched his efforts onto men's issues in part because so much of modern feminism has gotten distorted and perverted, there are many great feminists out there but for every good one there is an even louder one who distorts facts and history, and the media to fit their extreme agenda.

So it's not just angry males complaingin anonymously, it's angry women, men, all kinds of people some of whom include feminists, who do it openly on rather public and infamous websites all over the place.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

Jane Primrose said, "That's quite insulting to the majority of people with mental illnesses, who do not threaten or harm others."

I'm offended that you're insulted. The existence of violent psychopathy has no bearing on the experience of a person with clinical depression or bipolar disorder.

[Caroline Willis]

What are you talking about Arcadia?

"The existence of violent psychopathy has no bearing on the experience of a person with clinical depression or bipolar disorder."

Honestly that made my brain freeze, talkabout single handedly trying to derail the topic of the debate. One Jane didn't mention anything about depression or bipolar disorder or mental health, more the way you just flippantly throw around these descriptions about essentially internet trolls that have said some nasty things, though thanks for clarifying that you think that actually is tountamount to being a psychopath. Comments you've done in the past to present anyone who disagrees with certain arguments on this subject as deeply flawed/ emotionally troubled as a way of just completely discarding their points, creating a false dichotonomy between a woman who uses half assed misleading logic and money grabbing opportunist who deliberately tries to piss of as many people in the games industry as possible and then uses that anger as proof that in fact all her crazy bull is therefore even more true, and well done Iris for basically repeating that, and actual feminists or activists who speak genuine of truth and have actual integrity. Sarkesian's main influence just gives proper feminists a bad name and undermines their hard work.

[Galatea]

Sam: Great example of distorting reality there. When your own view of reality is so distorted that you call an accurate description of it "extremist" and an accurate description of a lot of the people in it as "straw men", it's clear you're not only blind to the problems being discussed, but are actively working hard to not see them. Try to understand, we're *not* making this shit up. We describe what actually happens to us, we often *understate* it, and then someone who clearly has no idea what really happens out there comments that we're exaggerating and making up straw men... even if its not their intent, it's hard *not* to see that kind of thing as misogynistic. Now, I don't think you're a misogynist, but you are clearly out of touch with reality, and you're dismissing the views of anyone who tries to inform you of what it's really like, allowing you to maintain your white-washed view.

[Iggy]

In light of my earlier claim (not about prison rape): I walk into our admin assistant's office today, to see her computer wallpaper is a closeup of a rotten, exploded head from some TV show called Bones.

I don't watch any TV beyond Mad Men on DVD, but as a faculty member, I know what will upset parents, faculty, administrators, and even some students.

I told her to take it down, NOW. She could lose her job.

She did switch to a default screen image, but it leads to a larger question: what sort of civilized society thinks that sort of public image is fine, or that killing prostitutes in GTA might be fine, but goes ballistic when a nude human body appears in an advert?

Having recently blown the brains out of a RL rabid animal at close range, I don't need to see it on a computer screen. We need to change our way of looking at things.

[Cube Republic]

"Anita Sarkeesian has never called for censorship of games, is a gamer herself (as she frequently says), and instead, only calls for better games. Why, then, must she literally need to flee for her life from threats of actual violence, as if she was a civil rights activist in a repressive culture?"

Make up your own mind. I've made mine up, this doesn't make me angry, a misogynist or 'a pissy little boy'(sic), or whatever insults one wishes to throw at someone who doesn't share the same opinion as them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Cube, read this post on NWN by Iris:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/08/no-gamer.html

Did you ever think that it's the same way for Ms. Sarkeesian? I mean there's a very obvious picture of her holding a SNES controller. That makes her a gamer. That perhaps she played more in the past, and was referring to more modern games? That video there had some suspicious edits in it.

But no, she's a girl and she can't possibly be a REAL gamer, any girl who talks about gaming is obviously lying for attention from guys right? Because there are no girls on the internet and girls don't play games? And worse yet, she criticizes games! If game companies listen to her they might take strippers out of games and not let us kill them! Oh the anguish.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It is incredibly dangerous to dismiss death threats as mere "trolling". This behavior is not simple abuse. It is illegal in all jurisdictions of the United States (with mandatory multi-year prison sentences in some), and a strong indicator of anti-social personality disorders (aka psychopathy/sociopathy).

Ad hominem, Caroline. If that's the best you can muster, you have my pity.

[Pep]

If you don't like the game don't play it. Buy something else. If you don't like the way other people play the game don't play with them.

Alternatively, make a fool of yourself by insisting that you are the only one who knows the right way to deal with virtual violence, and expect those who disagree with you not to tell you to FOAD.

Pep (Because you are not the only one; there's Mona and all the OBR vigilantes for starters.)

[Pep]

Why would ***I*** want to add that nonsense to ***my*** profile?

Pep (knows the difference between virtuality and reality)

PS And anyway, he's a bloke, not some wimpish female.