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[Glowcat]

Strawman much? Nobody's called for beating up women.

* Glowcat facepalms

Please read the preceding posts. I have no idea how you connected my accusation of hyperbole with simultaneously accusing people of wanting to beat up women.

The main critique from my end has been that her conclusions don't logically follow from her premises. She has nice premises and nice conclusions, but the bit in the middle is pure rhetoric. She uses flowery language to hide the seams.

That's nice, but I'm pretty sure from what I read that you still don't understand most of her argument in the first place so forgive me for not jumping on board the YEAH SHE SUCKS! wagon. I think Palsch did a pretty good job so if you really want to know why you should go back and read it while trying to understand his perspective instead of jumping on your conclusions before they're hatched. The overall argument has a lot of nuance and can't be boiled down to simple causes or effects but rather starts to deal with how humans in general pass along information or stereotypes with which we begin to understand the world and our place in it.

I mean, just for a start I've noticed that you often point to situations that are superficially similar as evidence that male characters are also treated yet with no consideration for the story surrounding those characters or whether their situation is actually the same on a deeper level. You leap to painfully simplistic conclusions like "Man hurt too! Bad!" without considering that those mindless grunts are parts of a kind of alpha dominance fantasy where one man conquers many others, or how a story of a man seeking vengeance for the father / mentor figure places the person slain as somebody capable and in turn becomes a story where the student becomes the master (or prince becomes the king, or any similar theme of replacing an important position). So far you don't even seem capable of dealing with these issues without dismissing information out of hand.

[palsch]

I don't think that the backlash had anything to do with sexism, and more to do with the fact that she was criticizing the largest common interest on the internet.

Except that a huge amount of the backlash was openly sexist. There is a reason the comments aren't open on the videos any more.

Regardless of whether there are some issues, it's not logically sound to conflate the Taliban with teenagers, which is what she basically does here. The Taliban are not playing Super Mario. This is my issue, she's over sensationalizing things by bringing in unrelated topics that conflate something that troublesome with someone murderous. And she undermines the strength of what she's saying by making these grand sweeps that don't really logically stack together.

OK, let's go back again to the actual quote;

It’s a sad fact that a large percentage of the world’s population still clings to the deeply sexist belief that women as a group need to be sheltered, protected and taken care of by men.

Now what was your complaint exactly? Where is conflating the Taliban with teenagers in this statement? Where is the grand sweep?

But if you want to say they are too common, you will need to give me a threshold. That is how burden of proof works.

My threshold is that there is a high profile, visible trend of that trope being used in video games.

The exact thing that she demonstrated in the videos in other words.

Such a trend is enough to solidify the trope within the collective conciousness of gamers and game developers. It creates a lazy, default shorthand plot that encourages future use and makes sure a particular harmful stereotype remains visible and repeated for everyone.

[Max White]

Except just because you focus on it enough to make it seem common, doesn't make it so. It is visible because there is a video series on it.
Actually there is a trope about this.

[Reelya]

@glowcat: I never said anything about "Man hurt too! Bad!" or made many in-game comparisons, so that's not even relevant. Slinging insults and mi-characterizing peoples positions isn't a rebuttal, glowcat. It's strawmanning plain and simple. What I said about domestic violence for example, wasn't about "me hurt too!" it was about how a real-world problem that is cross-gender is falsely protrayed as a single-gender issue, with a false set of trite prescriptions that naturally flow from the false diagnosis. Ignoring half the equation means you can't solve any of the problem, because you're not really addressing the core reason that it happens, not just about "fairness" for males.

Note, i brought up lesbian domestic violence as well, which is just as common as in straight relationships. Why don't your accuse me of being "LESBIANS HURT TOO! BAD"? Clearly, if there are relationships where patriarchal males aren't involved, or aren't the perpetrator, and yet these relationships still have a similar level of domestic violence to stereotypical patriarchal ones, it suggest anti-patriarchal solutions are only going to account for a small decrease in domestic violence, rather than tackling the deeper issues head-on.  Sooner or later you're going to need an inclusive model to make further headway.

---

My point about treatment of females/minorities/gay characters is best summed up by palsch's link on gay characters. Even that article couldn't find any more systematic anti-gay conspiracy except for "there aren't enough gay main characters and side characters get killed off". Which is the main point here, too.

Not enough female protagonists is the problem, and the other problems flow from that as a result. Exacerbated by the fact that game mechanics usually focus on a single character, rather than an ensemble cast like movies and TV. So the problems with protagonist homogeneity are amplified in this medium. Not because game developers are less enlightened than movie makers, or more bloodthirsty, but because the format of "playable game" makes a lot of constraints about how you can structure things.

---

Glowcat, you specifically labelled everyone you disagreed with as having the attitude of ""SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" in full capitals, no less. This is making a moral attack on anyone who disagrees with you, insinuating they have some nefarious ulterior motive, and it has the benefit of making you look good whilst absolving you of the responsibility of actually addressing their arguments.

Note, i haven't played any of the games she mentioned and have no desire to, so it's nothing to do with "leave my wife-beating fantasies alone!" because I have no such fantasies. I complained that she's mis-representing the scope of games, by such things as saying games where women aren't brutalized are the "exception to the rule".

Saying that I'm automatically saying "I love wife-bashing" is as insulting as it's intellectually dishonest.

[Glowcat]

@glowcat: I never said anything about "Man hurt too! Bad!" or made many in-game comparisons, so that's not even relevant. Slinging insults and mi-characterizing peoples positions isn't a rebuttal, glowcat. It's strawmanning plain and simple.

Good freakin' god. Maybe I should remind you about a few pages back to which I was referring to.

And she definitely states it in a way that implies that the few examples she's hand-picked are completely representative, which is definitely stating things in a rather misleading fashion. She also, in the current video #2 talks about how single female deaths in games are fostering a culture of violence against women, yet she completely ignores that you probably massacre 100's if not 1000's of male characters in each of those games. One thing that strikes me, is that if I was making a highly violent action game I might be tempted to put exactly zero female characters in it, to avoid any accusation of fostering violence against women, for the same reason you don't see many little kids in shooters. I have to wonder if this is one reason you don't see more female antagonists in shooters.

The above is a perfect example of your inability to both understand an argument and your reliance of misrepresentation. And yet you constantly call strawman 
You might remember more if you weren't throwing shit and hoping it sticks all the time.
 

What I said was that most of the problems stem from the lack of diversity of protagonists.

The existing images which give rise to women/minorities in those roles also need to be addressed, but yes, a simple usage of more diverse leading people would probably help alleviate the bulk of it.

I also pointed out that there's a disconnect between Anita's premises and conclusions, so they're not valid arguments. Conclusions may be valid, but her lines of reasoning are not.

If I surmise that you've failed to understand her arguments properly why would I care for your analysis?

Glowcat, you specifically labelled everyone you disagreed with as having the attitude of ""SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" in full capitals, no less.

This is making a moral attack on anyone who disagrees with you, insinuating they have some nefarious ulterior motive, and it has the benefit of making you look good whilst absolving you of the responsibility of actually addressing their arguments.

I hate having to spell out what should've been clear. People were drawing the conclusion that Anita wanted there to be no violence against women. Hell, YOU implied such earlier with:

And then they gripe that there aren't more female antagonists. Well, antagonists have a habit of being killed violently. So make your mind up on that one. Do you want "less violence against women" in action games or "more female antagonists"? Can't have both!

Hint: Anita actually defines what she means by violence against women specifically. It's in there. Yes, I checked.

If I'm calling the accusations hyperbole it's because they're exaggerations... Going from that to labeling EVERYBODY who argues against me as wanting to beat women is frankly an asinine reading. And how the hell did I not address arguments? I've addressed your shitty arguments and theirs by just linking to what the hell she's been saying all along free of creatively applied bullshit. It's goddamn ironic since yet again you're trying to distract from answering somebody's points with bogus accusations of strawman. Stop using that term if you don't know what the hell it is.

[Reelya]

I haven't ad hominem'd anyone in this thread, or attacked Anita over anything about her personally - only what she directly said in the articles she's written. I haven't even gone so far as to criticize her in any way related to meta-issues like the whole kickstarter thing - which is something many other posters have actually criticized her over.

The only one making this about interpersonal abuse is you.

@glowcat: I never said anything about "Man hurt too! Bad!" or made many in-game comparisons, so that's not even relevant. Slinging insults and mi-characterizing peoples positions isn't a rebuttal, glowcat. It's strawmanning plain and simple.

Good freakin' god. Maybe I should remind you about a few pages back to which I was referring to.

And she definitely states it in a way that implies that the few examples she's hand-picked are completely representative, which is definitely stating things in a rather misleading fashion. She also, in the current video #2 talks about how single female deaths in games are fostering a culture of violence against women, yet she completely ignores that you probably massacre 100's if not 1000's of male characters in each of those games. One thing that strikes me, is that if I was making a highly violent action game I might be tempted to put exactly zero female characters in it, to avoid any accusation of fostering violence against women, for the same reason you don't see many little kids in shooters. I have to wonder if this is one reason you don't see more female antagonists in shooters.

The above is a perfect example of your inability to both understand an argument and your reliance of misrepresentation. And yet you constantly call strawman 
You might remember more if you weren't throwing shit and hoping it sticks all the time.

That's not "throwing shit" it's making a valid observation that a phenomena occurs regardless of gender. If someone is claiming that a specific trope is gender-specific, then examples that the trope is applied regardless of gender is a valid observation. I'll follow up with some observations about the "limited scope" violence that Anita complains is gender-specific at the end of this post. We're on the same page, then, that dead bodies doesn't make it the problem - it's the way those deaths are framed that's the issue, right? See my examples at the bottom.

What I said was that most of the problems stem from the lack of diversity of protagonists.

The existing images which give rise to women/minorities in those roles also need to be addressed, but yes, a simple usage of more diverse leading people would probably help alleviate the bulk of it.

That's the observation that shows why the focus on all the other tropes is largely misplaced.

I also pointed out that there's a disconnect between Anita's premises and conclusions, so they're not valid arguments. Conclusions may be valid, but her lines of reasoning are not.

If I surmise that you've failed to understand her arguments properly why would I care for your analysis?

She's not attempting to make a logical connection between her presented premises and presented conclusions. In an argument, it's not sufficient to present valid premises and conclusions - you have to show how one flows from the last without exaggeration or misrepresentation. I've made the case by stating specific examples, which you or other have not sufficiently been able to defend. Hell, others have at least made some effort to refute what i have said. You, have not.

For example, I pointed out that her (very specific) claim that Krystals game was cancelled because of the Damsel in Distress trope doesn't stand up to scrutiny - because it doesn't, and it's an extremely specific claim made by Anita. I perfectly well understand that she needed a pretty sound bite tying everything into "why the damsel in distress disempowers women". Maybe it does disempower women. But the Star Fox example is a terrible example for Anita to claim was caused by the Damsel in Distress trope.

Then, with defining objectification, there's more smoke an mirrors, she starts with the subject/object dichotomy which we're meant to accept is a "simplification", but then she hasn't really laid out the definition of who is a subject and who is an object at all then, has she? From "the player is the subject" she just jumps straight into "all males PC and NPCs are subjects, females are objects" without further explanation of how she derived that from the first premise. This just shows the setup itself was a hand-wave gestures so she can introduce the term objectification into the discussion with the veneer of scientific definition of terms. Post-modern interpretation suffers a lot from this sort of issue of not defining terms properly, then jumping straight into their widespread application.

Glowcat, you specifically labelled everyone you disagreed with as having the attitude of ""SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" in full capitals, no less.

This is making a moral attack on anyone who disagrees with you, insinuating they have some nefarious ulterior motive, and it has the benefit of making you look good whilst absolving you of the responsibility of actually addressing their arguments.

I hate having to spell out what should've been clear. People were drawing the conclusion that Anita wanted there to be no violence against women. Hell, YOU implied such earlier with:

And then they gripe that there aren't more female antagonists. Well, antagonists have a habit of being killed violently. So make your mind up on that one. Do you want "less violence against women" in action games or "more female antagonists"? Can't have both!

Hint: Anita actually defines what she means by violence against women specifically. It's in there. Yes, I checked.

If I'm calling the accusations hyperbole it's because they're exaggerations... Going from that to labeling EVERYBODY who argues against me as wanting to beat women is frankly an asinine reading. And how the hell did I not address arguments? I've addressed your shitty arguments and theirs by just linking to what the hell she's been saying all along free of creatively applied bullshit. It's goddamn ironic since yet again you're trying to distract from answering somebody's points with bogus accusations of strawman. Stop using that term if you don't know what the hell it is.

It's not asinine to be offended by objective more asinine statement:

What does that have to do with her intentions or the "SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" hyperbole that's being tossed around here?

How else is that meant to be interpreted except as a straw man that I want to beat up women because I want to look at Anita's claims in a somewhat critical manner?

-----

Ok, let's focus on the more-limited types of violent tropes that Anita claims are women-only and are toxic. We already ascertained that violence in general is acceptable and afflicts both genders. But the issue is violence against dis-empowered individuals "for their own good".

Those have a trope name, "mercy killings". They exist in game narratives and a mercy killing is by definition "for their own good". If you look at TV Tropes page under video games, there are plenty of examples of male characters who fall under the "mercy killing" trope - e.g. they're killed "for their own good". So there is no automatic proof that it's only females who fall under this trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MercyKill

Numerous bosses in World Of Warcraft, particularly in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Several bosses use their last words to thank you.

Ok, we have plenty of examples of male bosses thanking you for defeating them.  It's not an unknown or rare trope for a possessed person to fight the hero and transform back into a human on death. It's certainly not a uniquely female trope. It's much more likely flowed from the existing male versions of the trope, but merely replaced with a female character, rather than some concept of mimicking domestic violence. Which is again back to the point - should we only allow certain tropes to involve male characters, because involving female characters in the same scenario could be questionable? That was the point of my (sarcastic) remark that removing female characters from violent games would remove the potential for criticism. It's still a valid point if you narrow the scope of "approved violence" and "harmful violence", because both types of violence can be shown in examples for both genders.

So, the question remains, is a trope harmful only when applied to a specific gender, and e.g., it's "ok" to kill possessed males in mercy killings?

In God Of War 2, Kratos comes upon the Titan Prometheus, who as per Greek mythology is chained to a rock with an eagle ripping out his organs every day (which grow back every night, meaning endless torment). Kratos mercy-kills him by dropping him into the Fire of Olympus, earning the Rage of the Titans power-up.

Note, here, we have the hero mercy-killing a disempowered (a damselled) male, mercy killing him, and receiving a reward (character progression) for doing so. Now, this is relevant, because Anita cites a later example from the same game featuring a woman in a similar scenario. The later one is labeled to be toxic, and reinforcing gender stereotypes. It's relevant that if Titan Prometheus had been female, and the scenario exactly identical, it would have been included in Anita's thesis as an example of toxic sexist attitudes.

The Metal Gear Solid series features this as a device at least twice. In "Metal Gear Solid", Solid Snake kills Sniper Wolf after she is badly wounded in a battle with him. In "Metal Gear Solid 3", the player is forced to initiate the mercy kill of The Boss, making it a Player Punch. Both of these characters beg to be killed though the trope description precludes this, but many of the other examples here are similar.

Here, MGS uses the same trope twice, once with each gender, and both characters "beg to be killed" after being beaten half to death by the player, much in line with Anita's thesis, which supposedly only happens with women, and is code for domestic violence. And we're supposed to agree that the one involving a female is gender-related.

In Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn you do this to a fellow prisoner in Irenicus' dungeon/laboratory. The poor fellow is being kept alive in a special tank against his will and has died and been brought back countless times. He begs you to kill him by removing the energy cell that powers his life support, which is convenient for you since you need that cell to power a different device.

There are pretty much endless examples of (possibly dis-empowered) characters of both genders begging to die, and you being rewarded for killing them. No need to claim that it's primarily about gender.

[Soadreqm]

Finally, the idea that it doesn't matter because it's only popular with teenage girls is so much bullshit. Teenage girls are among those most at risk from abusive relationships and those most open to relationship narratives in this sense. Their models of what a romantic relationship should or does look like are still forming. They are the absolute last audience you want to paint abuse as romance for.

Point taken. I think I might just be having a problem taking the work seriously.

the stock domestic violence story I know is that the man is always the offending party, and he is abusing the woman because he is evil and she is too weak and powerless to stop him.

This in itself offers a social reluctance to recognise abuse when it is conducted by men we don't think of as evil, or to women we don't see as weak and powerless. So we try to fit those abusers and victims into other narratives, often involving victim blaming or making excuses.

Recognising that abuse happens in different forms and ways and not just the narrow narratives that are easy to accept is an important part of this. But discouraging harmful narratives that make abuse easier to ignore or go any distance at all in excusing it is also important.

I am willing to recognise that as a problem, but I don't buy your solution. The problem is not that the narratives themselves are harmful. The problem is that apparently for many people, they're the sole source of information on domestic violence. No matter how progressive your domestic violence stories are, there are going to be times where they do not apply to a specific instance of domestic violence, and unless you actually go through the effort to judge relationship problems on a case-by-case basis, you are not going to be able to draw correct conclusions.

Also, the "narrative" in question is basically a collection of stock justifications for violence. The victim target is not in control of herself and a danger to others, she attacked you first, she is literally asking you to kill her, unless you kill her something terrible will happen, she is in cahoots with the other people you've already decided to kill, and most importantly, she's not really human. These are the same justifications provided for killing all the other enemies. Similar lines of reasoning also crop up in places like wartime propaganda. It is not actually possible to get rid of it, without eradicating violence altogether.

[Glowcat]

I haven't ad hominem'd anyone in this thread, or attacked Anita over anything about her personally - only what she directly said in the articles she's written. I haven't even gone so far as to criticize her in any way related to meta-issues like the whole kickstarter thing - which is something many other posters have actually criticized her over.

The only one making this about interpersonal abuse is you.

You've dismissed arguments out of hand. You've viciously attacked somebody's interpretation of your writing despite them asking for clarification beforehand. You've defended pseduoscience that reinforces harmful gender stereotypes on laughable grounds. You've cast domestic abuse as something that must reflect the weakness of the abused. You've constantly twisted peoples' words to suit your own agenda.

You've burned any good will in this argument.

I also pointed out that there's a disconnect between Anita's premises and conclusions, so they're not valid arguments. Conclusions may be valid, but her lines of reasoning are not.

She's not attempting to make a logical connection between her presented premises and presented conclusions. In an argument, it's not sufficient to present valid premises and conclusions - you have to show how one flows from the last without exaggeration or misrepresentation. I've made the case by stating specific examples, which you or other have not sufficiently been able to defend. Hell, others have at least made some effort to refute what i have said. You, have not.

This is irrelevant. I only came in to address where people could've found their answers by listening, not the whole mess you call a discussion. Most of what I've seen is a refusal to listen to the other side, rolling out misconception after misconception, and demanding people treat your words with far more respect than you grant others.

For example, I pointed out that her (very specific) claim that Krystals game was cancelled because of the Damsel in Distress trope doesn't stand up to scrutiny - because it doesn't, and it's an extremely specific claim made by Anita. I perfectly well understand that she needed a pretty sound bite tying everything into "why the damsel in distress disempowers women". Maybe it does disempower women. But the Star Fox example is a terrible example for Anita to claim was caused by the Damsel in Distress trope.

The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure to passive victim in someone else’s game illustrates how the Damsel in Distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own rite.

Going from that to the cause of the hero change itself is an uncharitable reading. She says that the tale of Krystal illustrates how the Damsel in Distress trope works, not that it was directly responsible for Star Fox getting the game. Though I can agree that she could've made the point a little better to avoid miscommunication with people who wouldn't realize that Tropes don't work on such a direct level.

Then, with defining objectification, there's more smoke an mirrors, she starts with the subject/object dichotomy which we're meant to accept is a "simplification", but then she hasn't really laid out the definition of who is a subject and who is an object at all then, has she? From "the player is the subject" she just jumps straight into "all males PC and NPCs are subjects, females are objects" without further explanation of how she derived that from the first premise. This just shows the setup itself was a hand-wave gestures so she can introduce the term objectification into the discussion with the veneer of scientific definition of terms. Post-modern interpretation suffers a lot from this sort of issue of not defining terms properly, then jumping straight into their widespread application.

What? How the crap did you come to that conclusion? She gave a straight (if simplified) definition here:

One way to think about Damsel’d characters is via what’s called the subject/object dichotomy. In the simplest terms, subjects act and objects are acted upon. The subject is the protagonist, one the story is centered on and the one doing most of the action. In video games this is almost always the main playable character and the one from whose perspective most of the story is seen.

So the damsel trope typically makes men the “subject” of the narratives while relegating women to the “object”. This is a form of objectification because as objects, damsel’ed women are being acted upon, most often becoming or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found or a goal to be achieved.

It's not asinine to be offended by objective more asinine statement:

What does that have to do with her intentions or the "SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" hyperbole that's being tossed around here?

How else is that meant to be interpreted except as a straw man that I want to beat up women because I want to look at Anita's claims in a somewhat critical manner?

This is where you crash against reality and wail against its wall as you demand that you be the one wronged, that your cause be just... I've explained it to you clearly and if you took a moment to free yourself from the obnoxious inability to consider alternatives you'd realize your interpretation makes absolutely no sense, that your moral outrage is precipitated on a lie, and that until you start to actually listen to what people are saying instead of abusing the very nature of words you'll never have the understanding necessary for this conversation to work.

[Reelya]

This is irrelevant.

When that's your entire response to a point i made - which was a direct example from Anita's own writings, and not a second hand argument against something someone put together here "on the fly" (which would get the benefit of the doubt becuase people are refining ideas as they go, not presenting a finalized essay that's meant to be definitive), i have no reason to take it as a serious response.

I've "viciously attacked" people? exactly how?

The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure to passive victim in someone else’s game illustrates how the Damsel in Distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own rite.

That's an extremely specific claim that the trope itself is the cause of there not being more female protagonists. In the example given, star Fox, it's not credible. And Anita fails to provide other examples justifying the proposed mechanism. Ok, you can say "she's not actually claiming that Star Fox was caused that way". I guess it could be interpreted that way semantically.

But that's just saying she's thrown an unrelated example in, and basically "proclaimed" that what she say is correct. Which fits perfectly with my assertion that her premises and conclusions are not connected. If it's not a premise that's relevant to the conclusion, why did she provide it?

I'd say it's much more likely that the damsel in distress is a trope deriving from the process of plot construction once you've already  determined your going to have a male protagonist. Disallowing the use of the trope somehow, probably wouldn't budge the gender ratio of protagonists at all.

To me, Anita's reliance on fairly shaky secondary tropes to reflect what's wrong with videos games indicates that she really has no idea about how the problem of gender imbalance in games could be actually addressed, and is just listing a bunch of stuff from games which are secondary symptoms of the actual problem.

With the subject/object dichotomy she uses a set of premises:

1. subject is the protagonist since he acts, things he acts on are objects.
2. protagonist is male (normally), goal (object) is female.
3. Bowser is not an object, he's a subject

To be more precise, #1 established "protagonists are subjects", #2 established "males are subjects" from #1, #3 established "bowser is therefore a subject, because he's male". which fits with the previous #2, but not for same the reasons it was inferred from #1, since Bowser isn't a protagonist, so it's a logical non-sequiter.

And it's backwards logic - she's not trying to prove anything - she's trying to give a semi-plausible intro to pull the term "objectification" into the debate with some veneer of scientific credibility. This is clear by the fact that as soon as she has the A->B->C->"Women are objectified" done, she totally ignores the A,B,C and uses the term however she likes, even if it contradicts the earlier axioms.

this is a common problem in post-modern literary criticism, they don't do logic very well.

Post modern lit. crit. almost never stands up to close scrutiny. I see no reason slapping "feminist" on the front should make it any better.

[Max White]

Glowcat, all you are doing is producing a stream of non-arguments. I mean seriously.

But I'm pretty sure you'll find a reason to complain about that too.

So now pointing out when something is wrong is looking for reasons to complain? Fuck yes, I will look for reasons to complain in anything, and if none can be found then it passes the grade. Pointing out the failures in something isn't a fault in the critic, it is a fault in the work.
But you don't seem very open to the idea of objective evaluation.

Duh, there's a very valid complaint about how she presents those "good" games.

What does that have to do with her intentions or the "SHE'S NOT ALLOWING US TO BEAT UP WOMEN!!" hyperbole that's being tossed around here?

See here you are trying to imply that pointing out flaws in Anitas reasoning is equal to complaining that she is against violence. These arn't the same thing. You can be against violence and point out how poorly Anitas arguments are structured.
This argument really is nothing but a weak strawman and nothing more.

* Glowcat facepalms

Please read the preceding posts. I have no idea how you connected my accusation of hyperbole with simultaneously accusing people of wanting to beat up women.

Oh hey, you know what is easier than producing an argument? Telling people to reread. Pointing out that you are using a misleading argument isn't misrepresenting your point, it is telling you why it is wrong.

That's nice, but I'm pretty sure from what I read that you still don't understand most of her argument in the first place so forgive me for not jumping on board the YEAH SHE SUCKS! wagon.

Oh hey, you know what is easier than producing an argument? Asserting that not agreeing with a point is because you don't understand it. Maybe, and hear me out now, we understand you, we just don't agree.


It just keeps getting worse the more I read on. Try actually saying something rational instead of assuming the other guy is wrong and telling him that over and over.

[Rolan7]

Glowcat, all you are doing is producing a stream of non-arguments. I mean seriously.

Says the guy who put words in my mouth just to argue against them.

[Bauglir]

We, uh, we should probably amplify our relaxed states in here.

[Neonivek]

We, uh, we should probably amplify our relaxed states in here.

Mandatory Yoga breaks?

[Rolan7]

Competitive strip yoga?

[Glowcat]

We, uh, we should probably amplify our relaxed states in here.

A "relaxed state" only allowed the sort of dismissive behavior that eventually led to my furious interjection 

I've tried to cut out the worst responses but I'm at a state of frustration with some people who aren't giving some basic consideration needed to have a proper argument.

Oh hey, you know what is easier than producing an argument? Telling people to reread. Pointing out that you are using a misleading argument isn't misrepresenting your point, it is telling you why it is wrong.

Rereading is helpful when you've failed to grasp the argument in the first place. Like...

See here you are trying to imply that pointing out flaws in Anitas reasoning is equal to complaining that she is against violence. These arn't the same thing. You can be against violence and point out how poorly Anitas arguments are structured.
This argument really is nothing but a weak strawman and nothing more.

Think about what my issue with you was. (You failed to represent her arguments correctly)
Consider what my accusation was (By saying Anita's arguments meant women could never be targets of violence you were using hyperbole - though I guess it's no longer an exaggeration at that point)
Consider that when you're arguing against a point that doesn't even apply, you're committing a strawman yourself, and that's what I'm objecting to.

Or rather the string of strawmen after strawmen in this army of strawmen.

And while I'm incredibly frustrated with Reelya at least he didn't dip into the pool of faux "I'm rational and you're emotional!" insults as quickly as you did (and I'm not just talking about your response to me). If my post seems angry it's because, like your response above, you're not considering the entire argument. You're cherry picking portions as drawing conclusions without seriously giving thought to what is being said. Without some basic level of communication how would a debate ever progress in a meaningful fashion? This has been going nowhere for over a hundred pages now because some basic courtesy hasn't been given.