Let me start off by saying that being a girl in the gaming community is (a) not rare at all and (b) so tedious. Do you know how annoying it is for a guy to say "Girls only play video games to get a guy's attention"? Because it's so annoying. I don't understand what you want me to say. "Yeah. You know, I just walk into a Gamestop and burn $60"? Why would I waste that much money on something that may or may not "impress" somebody? It literally makes no sense as to why videogames are characterized as such a male hobby. Girls have opposable thumbs, and we can move them. What's the challenge? Absolutely nothing. Anyway, let's get on with this. What is sexism?Sexism is when one or more people target a certain sex, and they stereotype, discriminate, or prejudice, typically against women, on the basis of sex. "#GamerGate" ControversyThis past August, the "#GamerGate" controversy started up when indie game developer Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend accused Quinn of having a romantic relationship with Nathan Grayson, a journalist for the video game news site Kotaku. Quinn, along with the many members of the gaming industry who supported her, received misogynistic harassment; people threatened and released personal information about Quinn's supporters, causing some of them to leave their homes. These harassers mainly targeted women, including Quinn, Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian, and indie game developer Brianna Wu. This harassment was undoubtedly sexist and misogynistic against multiple women in the gaming community. GamerGate's SexismBack in October, Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the YouTube channel FeministFrequency that describes the representation of women in pop culture, was supposed to speak at Utah State University, but she was forced to cancel the talk after death threats were made towards her by a student at USU. Some staff members received an email signed anonymously threatening that if Sarkeesian came to the university, it would be "the deadliest school shooting in American history," yet police refused to take action towards preventing firearms at the talk because of Utah's open carry laws. Sarkeesian received many death threats against her and other feminists at USU, and one threat claimed to be affiliated with the #GamerGate movement. Sarkeesian has said much about #GamerGate saying, "At this point supporting #gamergate is implicitly supporting the harassment of women in the gaming industry." Sarkeesian also reported that she has received death threats including her personal information which temporarily drove her out of her home. Sarkeesian told an audience: "One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences... The perpetrators do not see themselves as perpetrators at all. They see themselves as noble warriors. We are blamed for the abuse we receive and regularly told that we are either asking for it or inventing it entirely." In October, indie game developer Brianna Wu mocked #GamerGate supporters saying "fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent," so #GamerGate supporters retaliated by mocking her. They soon posted her home address and other personal information and eventually started sending her death threats. Wu was then targeted and threatened on Twitter; she had to involve the police, and she and her husband left their home. Two months later, after tweeting about the death of her dog, Wu received pictures of mutilated dogs that #GamerGate supporters emailed her corporate email. Wu has offered a reward for information about those involved in her harassment and has promised she would not be intimidated by the threats. Actress Felicia Day had made a post on her blog concerning #GamerGate and how she has avoided talking about it for fear of harassment herself. Her address was revealed in the comments. I wonder why she was so afraid of talking about it. Meanwhile, actor Wil Wheaton and former NFL player Chris Kluwe also posted about #GamerGate; Kluwe even used "creative insults," yet neither of them received any harassment. How surprising. Let's Change PleaseHow come all of these women are getting harassed, and sometimes even driven from their homes, when those two men - and most likely more male gamers from the community - don't get a single negative comment? We all know why. Now, I'm not saying that these male celebrities deserve to get harassed; I'm saying all of the women who spoke up about something they believed in did not deserve in the slightest any of the backlash that they got. If you've read this far and you still don't believe that sexism - in any community - exists, then you seriously have to reevaluate your priorities. These #GamerGate supporters - and many other groups of (mainly) men - have sent death and rape threats to women in the gaming industry and have leaked their personal information just to "prove" that misogyny and sexism don't exist; how ironic. Not only is the gaming community getting a bad reputation from their violence and "influence on mass murderers," but now that #GamerGate has started, this community will very soon start to be generalized as a bunch of big babies who can't deal with the fact that they are misogynistic - in more ways than just this #GamerGate movement - to nearly half of this community.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
BellaI like cheese and video games. Categories
All
Archives
February 2015
|