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[kaijyuu]

I did. Even though I knew they were empty threats, they were still stupid, and gave the dude plenty of reason to continue his paranoid rambling about how video games made people violent. Threatening someone with violence when they're complaining you're violent is the absolute worst way to shut them up. It just encourages them.

I question the intelligence of anyone who actually threatened Jack Thompson.

[Reelya]

Sure, i agree such outbursts that aren't directed at the content of the message he was sending are stupid and counter-productive. But I also don't really see anyone concerned about the threats to Jack in the sense of caring about how that made Jack feel, in the way we all react (well all of us who aren't creating threats) to the threats to Anita. There's definitely a level of socialization in that reaction.

[kaijyuu]

That's standard dehumanizing evil people.

No one cared when Margret Thatcher got insulted, either.

[Reelya]

Jack's not quite up there with warmongering leaders. Though that's probably due to incompetence that preventing him winning those elections he ran for.

Due to Jack's reputation though, I was just thinking the best way to get people off the backs of those games Anita critiqued would be to get Jack to endorse her campaign.

[Rolan7]

So one of Anita's worst sins is using "epidemic" to describe a pervasive problem which spreads from person to person... If I were her, I'd be happy to hear that.

[Reelya]

Only if you take every single criticism to be the only criticism she's ever faced, but then you'd be ignoring anything else that ever came up.
Nobody said it was "one of Anita's worst sins"... the term "sin" totally misrepresents criticism - one can be wrong, or misguided, without it being a "sin" or some attempt at evil intentions.

A bigger issue occurred to me, and that's how she uses feminist theory to analyze narratives, and said that the narrative was reinforcing the beliefs she'd interpreted via her analysis. This would include the idea that Princess Peach is the possession of Mario, and Mario is on a quest to get "his" belongings back.

Now, a narrative may have many alternate interpretations. None of them is the "true" one. And the fact is, nobody except feminists is sitting there analyzing Mario according to feminist theories. So it makes no sense at all to claim that the average player is being indoctrinated by games such as Mario that Princess Peach is the "possession" of Mario - because that's a belief gained through the specific process of feminist literary analysis - which the target audience specifically are not engaged in. Most people don't say "I'm a plumber and I'm rescuing a princess, therefore the princess is my property that was stolen". Also, girlfriends as property is something only believed by a small minority of misogynists (not even all abusers believe this) and in feminist critique of heterosexual relationships in general. Most people don't see romantic relationships as an "owner/object" one (women are no less demanding of relationship exclusivity), so they have no reason to interpret a relationship in a game as one.

This is perhaps the weakest point in her thesis - because you truly need to analyze a work using the same thought process as the target audience, to claim to speak for how that work will affect that audience. She should check her privilege - not everyone interprets things the same way.

[Max White]

My point is that she blames discrimination on a patriarchy. Would you agree?

In the videos? No, I wouldn't agree.

So what do you think she means when she says

In the game of patriarchy women are not the opposing team, they are the ball.

Why include that statement?

So you're saying that even if I want to have a serious discussion about software, I shouldn't even bother learning what APR is. It's completely okay it that every time it is used I associate it with Acoustic Paramagnetic Resonance and refuse to acknowledge that you are using it to mean something different. Because it's somehow not my responsibility to educate myself on these things before I engage in arguments about them.

Oh, and here's another thing. You are not a "client". You are not hiring somebody because they have knowledge you don't that they need to explain to you in terms you can understand. This is you engaging in debate on philosophical, cultural, and practical feminism. Yes, you should educate yourself on what feminists are actually saying before you start arguing against it. At least, you know, if you want to accomplish anything constructive or do anything else than shout empty words at people.

Not only are you not required to know specific jargon, it is expected that you will misunderstand any jargon used. If you were a programmer that is different, but when experts choose to communicate to non-experts, it is required that they speak using approachable language, or they are assholes.

And yes, I am the client, except as a piece of media rather than a project we use a different term, target audience. It is important to use language applicable to the target audience.

Personally, I have a bigger problem with Anita's use of the word "epidemic" when describing real-world violence. It's clearly as semantically incorrect as it is emotionally arresting.

Every time she says "epidemic" I cringe. And there's definitely no special feminist sense of that word to justify it's use.

EDIT: Actually, she could get away with it, if she used it as an adjective, which is allowed, but not as a noun, for her intended use.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epidemic

Attacking grammar is a bit nit-picky and unproductive. The problem would be pointing out that when others use the word epidemic, they can usually provide data like how common it is, the rate of growth and decline, data about causes and demographics. To actually call something an epidemic is a true sense you need to be able to bring more to the table that saying it happens a lot.
The common cold happens a lot, but it isn't labeled an epidemic because even though it is prevalent, there isn't a huge increase in the rate of infection, and when there is then you have an epidemic, so data is important, something Anita doesn't seem to care about.


Although the term is used to describe things poorly colloquially. I wonder, is Anita using professional terminology or colloquial terminology? Maybe we are just meant to find what ever interpretation frames her in the best light like some sort of zealot who picks the versus they like to take literally and other things mean something else, rather than approaching with a skeptical mind.

[Bauglir]

No, you don't have to explicitly analyze a word from a feminist perspective for that to happen. If you think so, you've fundamentally misunderstood how culture promotes things, as well as the point of analysis. Analysis describes explicitly a concept or fact that was always there, whether it was earlier analyzed or not. Feminism certainly didn't create a culturally created power imbalance between sexes, it described one that had already existed for quite some time, for a relevant example. Your argument seems to be that people who don't think with feminist vocabulary cannot act in ways that vocabulary describes. That's... pretty preposterous.

In the case of Mario, let's take the narrative structure of most games. Saving Princess Peach is your goal. You're going on your quest for her sake, because it's the right thing to do. That's fine. But she doesn't really serve any purpose in the story other than as a goal to be quested after. What's worse, a romantic relationship with her (or a kiss, or whatever) is portrayed as a reward Mario earns through hard work on her behalf. Making it a transaction is the problem with this, because it implies she's obligated to do something like this for Mario whether or not she wants to - he's earned it, and that's what matters to the story*.

Now, you don't have to explicitly think any of this, or agree with it, for it to support the nebulous concept of "How stories are supposed to work". And since virtually everyone conceptualizes their life in terms of stories, this in turn contributes to the nebulous idea of how people normally treat each other and what's generally acceptable, without Mario being particularly responsible. It just becomes what's normal, and that's the problem in this case. It's not examined, so it's not rejected, but it isn't outright accepted either. As you say, very few people would say, "Women are property". So they don't. It just sort of lingers, allowing people to avoid having to think, "This woman is a person, just like me".

*There's a whole rant here about people who do "nice things" because they think it entitles them to sex. But that's a tangent. Important point, though, is that are a lot of people who do buy into the narrative structure without ever explicitly internalizing the idea that women are property.

EDIT:

Maybe we are just meant to find what ever interpretation frames her in the best light like some sort of zealot who picks the versus they like to take literally and other things mean something else, rather than approaching with a skeptical mind.

I'd really prefer an argument that dealt with her clearly understood meaning, instead of the exact words she used to express it. Sure, she could've been more technically precise. In a Youtube video. One not intended for a scientific or professional audience, for that matter. When we're debating the precise definition of the word, "epidemic", as if it's actually relevant to any claim she's made, we've clearly lost our minds.

[DJ]

*There's a whole rant here about people who do "nice things" because they think it entitles them to sex. But that's a tangent. Important point, though, is that are a lot of people who do buy into the narrative structure without ever explicitly internalizing the idea that women are property.

And that whole rant is a bunch of mysandric bullshit that got repeated so much it's been accepted as a hard fact. Sucking up to people you want something from is pretty much instinctive behaviour. Everyone does it all the time with all sorts of people, like work colleagues, boss, family members, friends etc. Are we treating all these people like our possessions? Why is sucking up to a romantic interest worse than sucking up to any of these other people? Other than being kinda counterproductive, that is.

[Loud Whispers]

*There's a whole rant here about people who do "nice things" because they think it entitles them to sex. But that's a tangent. Important point, though, is that are a lot of people who do buy into the narrative structure without ever explicitly internalizing the idea that women are property.

And that whole rant is a bunch of mysandric bullshit that got repeated so much it's been accepted as a hard fact. Sucking up to people you want something from is pretty much instinctive behaviour. Everyone does it all the time with all sorts of people, like work colleagues, boss, family members, friends etc. Are we treating all these people like our possessions? Why is sucking up to a romantic interest worse than sucking up to any of these other people? Other than being kinda counterproductive, that is.

Why is sex treated as a commodity? And why by so many?

[DJ]

It's no more of a commodity than virtually anything else you could possibly get from other people, including intangible stuff like emotional support.

[Vector]

And that whole rant is a bunch of mysandric bullshit that got repeated so much it's been accepted as a hard fact. Sucking up to people you want something from is pretty much instinctive behaviour. Everyone does it all the time with all sorts of people, like work colleagues, boss, family members, friends etc. Are we treating all these people like our possessions? Why is sucking up to a romantic interest worse than sucking up to any of these other people? Other than being kinda counterproductive, that is.

?

[Loud Whispers]

It's no more of a commodity than virtually anything else you could possibly get from other people, including intangible stuff like emotional support.

It's still treated like it.

[Bauglir]

Also, because when you don't get that promotion, wedding invitation, or whatever, from somebody else just because you were sucking up to them, there isn't a cultural narrative or a community of people that will tell you you've been wronged. If anything, most cultural lessons that deal with that tend to paint sycophants as failures, since they can't accomplish whatever is actually expected of them to reach their goal, and so resort to being a kiss-ass. When it comes to sex, though, most stories suggest that if you're nice to somebody and stick with them through tough times, you'll wind up together. It's just what happens if you're the protagonist. It seems like a reasonable expectation. You don't think of it as somebody owing you; that's just how it's supposed to work out.

If you complain about not getting promoted at work, even though you bought the boss coffee every day for months and belittled every other potential candidate, you will rightly get told to fuck right off. You apparently didn't approach it from the perspective of being right for the job you're seeking, and you might not have even considered whether or not there was an opening. There are very large parts of society where that response doesn't happen if a woman doesn't decide to have sex with you.

EDIT: At least in the culture(s) I'm familiar with, which is to say mainstream Western culture and "nerdy" Internet culture. Perhaps this hypocrisy does not apply elsewhere.

[Neonivek]

So one of Anita's worst sins is using "epidemic" to describe a pervasive problem which spreads from person to person... If I were her, I'd be happy to hear that.

Ehhh, given her top 3 (Bad examples, Bad explanations, and bending words out of their meaning in order to make the audience agree with her but in fact bringing up more questions when anyone puts any thought into what exactly she said) I don't think it is close to her Worst sins on this project.

Though I guess her first would be that her videos are just bland... but I get that more from the first which seemed very general and like it didn't really have anything to say.