Thoughts on Anita Sarkeesian's videos?

[Kushiel]

Oh, so the insinuation of homosexuality is intended to be insulting. Well, that's much better.

I could kiss you for this witty retort, but I might get insulted.

No homo.

[Melusine]

What I (and presumably Assassini) are saying is that in the cases we're talking about the intent was always to make the other person feel insulted/oppressed/abused/humiliated and the words used were chosen exactly because of that. When insulting someone people frequently go for the wording that will hurt the other person the most.

Insulting people is a fine art. Using their sexuality or race to denigrate them isn't just bigoted, it's also extremely lazy. "Haha, you're a fag!" Jesus Christ, fuckface. Pick some better insults.

In any case, a person who uses such words knowingly is certainly bigoted. I mean seriously. Are we going to argue that a person who uses the n-word against people (especially black people) isn't racist?

[consortium11]

Oh, so the insinuation of homosexuality is intended to be insulting. Well, that's much better.

Again, I'm not saying that it isn't abusive, that it isn't insulting or that the insult isn't homophobic... it clearly is.

I'm saying that someone saying "faggot" once doesn't make them a raging homophobe who hates gay people. It means they used a homophobic insult. They may be a raging homophobe who hates gay people but it takes more than a single word to make it so.

Again, how many people here have ever called someone an idiot? If you have you've used abelist insults (as late as 2007/8 "idiot" was still a legal term in the US for those with mental disabilities) and, following the logic here, are now an ableist.

You don't get to pick and choose when racist/sexist/homophobic words are those things.

If you're using them, you're being a racist/sexist/homophobe. End of story. There is no getting around it.

No-one, as far as I'm aware, has denied that the insults are racist/sexist/homophobic. They self-evidently are. What we're saying is that people picked those insults not because they necessarily have racist/sexist/homophobic beliefs but because they knew those insults would be hurtful.

Again, try playing a FPS/MOBA game where your tag/ID indicates you're English on an American server then make a mistake that screws things up for your team. I give you about 10 seconds before anti-English insults start pouring out. Does that mean the US gaming population is full of people who are bigoted against the English/anti-English/English-ist?

[Melusine]

Again, I'm not saying that it isn't abusive, that it isn't insulting or that the insult isn't homophobic... it clearly is.

I'm saying that someone saying "faggot" once doesn't make them a raging homophobe who hates gay people. It means they used a homophobic insult. They may be a raging homophobe who hates gay people but it takes more than a single word to make it so.

The fact is that most bigots aren't the type who'd go as far as to commit a hate crime. But even having stereotypes in your head and being willing to call people such hurtful words makes you a bigot. Maybe not a virulent, extremely hateful and dangerous bigot, but still a bigot. And if someone uses homophobic insults, I'm willing to bet they have other patterns of behavior that make them bigoted.

No-one, as far as I'm aware, has denied that the insults are racist/sexist/homophobic. They self-evidently are. What we're saying is that people picked those insults not because they necessarily have racist/sexist/homophobic beliefs but because they knew those insults would be hurtful.

If a person is cruel enough to use insults that they KNOW have probably been used against a specific social class in order to oppress them, and they still don't care because they just need to use that insult, they're bigots and they're terrible people as well. Many of these insults come with harassment, with abuse, with beatings in the life of a queer or non-white person.

[Kythia]

I must say, it does look like there's a conscious decision not to engage with consortium11's points about anti-English-ism and ableism which certaqinly seem to be the same.  It's easy to say that "saying faggot makes you a homophobe" and I would previously have agreed.  But I think the comparison is strong, and further that bad teeth jokes don't make people anti-British.  As such, it looks like people are cherry picking his argument a little and refusing to engage with it fully, which furthe makes it look like they can't actually refute it.  Just sayin'

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm currently convinced by consortium11 and I have alliteration on my side.

[Caehlim]

Again, try playing a FPS/MOBA game where your tag/ID indicates you're English on an American server then make a mistake that screws things up for your team. I give you about 10 seconds before anti-English insults start pouring out. Does that mean the US gaming population is full of people who are bigoted against the English/anti-English/English-ist?

Even where I'm not openly gay on a server I get called a faggot or compared to a woman a lot more than I receive anti-Australian rhetoric (which I've received precisely never) and I suck at FPS games.

Maybe just everyone loves an Aussie (entirely possible thanks to Crocodile Dundee).

Again, how many people here have ever called someone an idiot? If you have you've used abelist insults (as late as 2007/8 "idiot" was still a legal term in the US for those with mental disabilities) and, following the logic here, are now an ableist.

This is one of the reasons I don't call people idiots.

I must say, it does look like there's a conscious decision not to engage with consortium11's points about anti-English-ism and ableism which certaqinly seem to be the same.  It's easy to say that "saying faggot makes you a homophobe" and I would previously have agreed.  But I think the comparison is strong, and further that bad teeth jokes don't make people anti-British.  As such, it looks like people are cherry picking his argument a little and refusing to engage with it fully, which furthe makes it look like they can't actually refute it.  Just sayin'

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm currently convinced by consortium11 and I have alliteration on my side.

I'm in the middle of typing it and I get Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post. arrgh, too slow.

[Melusine]

I wasn't aware that "idiot" meant mentally disabled. I thought it meant simply "unintelligent". From now on, I'll try not to use it as an insult.

I can't remember being insulted for being greek though, at least not in servers and MMOs. My foreign friends do tease me about my inability to handle money, but that admittedly doesn't bother me much.

[Kythia]

I wasn't aware that "idiot" meant mentally disabled. I thought it meant simply "unintelligent". From now on, I'll try not to use it as an insult.

So you were fine insulting people for something outside their control but now you know its a different type of thing outside their control you'll stop?

[Caehlim]

Also we can possibly argue that a person deliberately choosing to exert power over minority groups, in order to knowingly cause the minority person suffering for their own emotional benefit is not a bigot and their choice to use these words in no way indicates a belief that doing so is acceptable.

Even granting that point, how would that change the fact that gaming environments are often toxic and unwelcoming to minority participation? How would it change that these insults are chosen because of the social environment in which being part of these minorities is considered negative?

[Kythia]

Even granting that point, how would that change the fact that gaming environments are often toxic and unwelcoming to minority participation? How would it change that these insults are chosen because of the social environment in which being part of these minorities is considered negative?

Oh, it wouldn't at all.  Calling people "faggot" isn't wrong because it does or doesn't make you a homophobe.  You're right, it's a side alley.

[Melusine]

So you were fine insulting people for something outside their control but now you know its a different type of thing outside their control you'll stop?

It's different. Stupid people aren't a disadvantaged social group which gets piles of shit thrown at them by society, while mentally disabled people are.

[Kythia]

It's different. Stupid people aren't a disadvantaged social group which gets piles of shit thrown at them by society, while mentally disabled people are.

Having a (sufficiently) low IQ is a mental disability.

EDIT: Sufficiently

[Oniya]

Hate speech is, outside the law, speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.  Regardless of your feelings on legislation about said speech, I would put forward that using hate speech is - at best bullying.

If you were at a soccer (football) game where your kid was playing, and someone slung imprecations about any of the above, would you consider it 'just part of the culture'?  If your wife/girlfriend/daughter was playing WoW, or even Minecraft and someone called her a 'stupid cunt', would you tell her to just brush it off?  Or would you want to reach through the Internet, grab a handful of the other guy's shirt and tell him in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up?

[Caehlim]

Having a (sufficiently) low IQ is a mental disability.

Personally I think people should make an effort to avoid insulting others at all. I'll admit, I don't always manage this and sometimes slip into passive-aggressive insults because yeah, when your emotions get the best of you sometimes you have harmful impulses.

I don't think that people should call others stupid and I don't think that having a low IQ should be mocked. However by most clinical definitions that I am aware of, a person's IQ has to be phenomenally low in order to count as a mental disability. It's often as many standard deviations down from average as MENSA requires people to be above average for their applications.

This isn't really relevant to anything, I just... yeah, I'm a pedant. Sorry.

[Oniya]

This isn't really relevant to anything, I just... yeah, I'm a pedant. Sorry.

I want to say that <70 is the technical cut-off?  [/StoreHouse]

[Melusine]

Having a (sufficiently) low IQ is a mental disability.

EDIT: Sufficiently

People with average IQs are perfectly capable of being stupid. When I call someone that, it's because they made a stupid decision, like aggroing the boss before the team is adequately prepared.

I wouldn't call a person with a mental disability (sufficiently low IQ) stupid. It would be insensitive and bigoted of me.

[Kythia]

Personally I think people should make an effort to avoid insulting others at all. I'll admit, I don't always manage this and sometimes slip into passive-aggressive insults because yeah, when your emotions get the best of you sometimes you have harmful impulses.

I don't think that people should call others stupid and I don't think that having a low IQ should be mocked. However by most clinical definitions that I am aware of, a person's IQ has to be phenomenally low in order to count as a mental disability. It's often as many standard deviations down from average as MENSA requires people to be above average for their applications.

This isn't really relevant to anything, I just... yeah, I'm a pedant. Sorry.

No worries.  Over here (UK) we actually no longer make the diagnosis based on IQ, but based on other factors - ability to live fully and independently in society etc etc etc which are correlates of a very low IQ (amongst, obvi, other things).  My point was that I felt Melusine was drawing an arbitrary line more than anything else.

I've heard very strong arguments about why one shouldn't use stupid/idiot/jesus fucking wept what is wrong with your brain/dumb/moron as insults which I, invariably when I read them, agree with.  For some reason though that agreement will not stick in my mind for more than about five minutes before I go back to using my standard speech patterns.  It's on my mind now, so I probably wouldn't but once I've been out of this thread for a while I'll forget again and be back to it.

[Lustful Bride]

I wonder if she really plays these games. This was pointed out to me in a video by a game reviewer named Angry Joe who talked about how suspicious it was that Sarkeesian's game footage seemed to sometimes perfectly mirror that of Cubex (Now called World Of Longplays) and said that Cubex was fine with other people using their footage, so long as they were cited. Which miss Sarkeesian (at the time, idk if she does now)  did not.


Otherwise my thoughts on her videos, its kind of like she's looking for trouble. I don't mean this to say she is one of those people who pushes someone then cries when she is pushed back. But it really does feel sometimes like she is playing with fire just to get people to freakout and get publicity. But that's just me.

Aside from that I just don't like much of what she has to say, it feels like she is picking on games that I like and I couldn't stand more than 2 minutes of her stuff. Since the last time I watched one of her videos (which was somewhere around a year or two ago) I have really payed her no mind and stayed within the circles and niches I know and love. I can sort of respect what shes trying to do, if that is to get game companies ot make better female characters, but I think she is going about it the wrong way and letting her own bias and feelings override her logic.

Put a slash through the first one because I did not see that I wasn't supposed to talk about her game footage. Sorry my bad.

[Shjade]

What s/he didn't even stop to consider was that these women were not getting "abused" (and I rely heavily on my quotation marks there) because they were women. No, they were being "abused" in the same way any other newbie playing a multiplayer game like LoL/DotA/TF2 gets abused. They received it because they sucked at the game. The difference being that here this is suddenly unacceptable because apparently this is actually misogyny, these players were targeting these women because they were women and not because they were just bad at the game.

Now I'm not saying I support the abuse of newbies (they need to be nurtured carefully in order to become productive members of the community), but this seems to be very much along the same lines of Anita Sarkeesian's arguments. An argument that doesn't present the whole story, that cherry picks information and is designed around professional victims.

Two things:

1 - that the community in question is this toxic in general, regardless of who they're targeting, is a problem

2 - when the insults of choice - cunt, bitch, get raped, etc. - are generally oriented toward using femininity* as a derogatory state, it's suggestive of misogynistic tendencies even when no women are involved.

Regarding Anita's videos themselves, Garuss (and others), you might find this (long-ass) video response interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP9OvnqfOXo&list=UUQIK3jr5srVWDFRtxIlgyUg

Why?

Because the guy making that video teases Anita for her style in the videos and, by his view, her arguments are incredibly poorly constructed (in part due to some of the things you mention). But the kicker? He agrees with her overall point. He just thinks she doesn't support her argument well.




*note that men can be raped as well...and being so often leads to get them further disrespected for having taken it, being "the woman," etc.

[Slywyn]

I can't even this thread right now.

[Caehlim]

I want to say that <70 is the technical cut-off?  [/StoreHouse]

That was the same number that was bouncing around in my head, so we might be right. I was also a bit unsure because I can't remember under 70 on which test and the different tests are scored differently.

Okay, from what I can see that's the right number Wikipedia source and since it's about 2-3% of the population it must be based on a test which uses 16 IQ points as one standard deviation which means it should roughly line up with MENSA so I think we were both on the right track.

Over here (UK) we actually no longer make the diagnosis based on IQ, but based on other factors - ability to live fully and independently in society etc etc etc which are correlates of a very low IQ (amongst, obvi, other things).

That's probably a better way of measuring it I think.

I've heard very strong arguments about why one shouldn't use stupid/idiot/jesus fucking wept what is wrong with your brain/dumb/moron as insults which I, invariably when I read them, agree with.  For some reason though that agreement will not stick in my mind for more than about five minutes before I go back to using my standard speech patterns.  It's on my mind now, so I probably wouldn't but once I've been out of this thread for a while I'll forget again and be back to it.

There is the argument that hate speech carries an extra backing because of the history of the terms used making it worse. I think there's possibly some validity to this argument, but in the end I just prefer to try to avoid insults full stop. I'm not always successful and I think my current prime minister has probably elicited a few particularly intense ones recently, in my head if nowhere else. But yeah, why try to inflict pain on others? (masochists excepted).

[consortium11]

On the idiot thing:

The root word "idiot" comes from is Greek and has very little to do with the modern use of the term; it indicated someone who was selfish and only interested in private rather than public affairs. Over the years however the meaning of the term changed considerably and it became a formal medical term, given prominence by Henry H. Goddard (one of the leading psychologists of the early 1900's) when he classified mental disability into three groups; idiots (mental age of 0-3), imbeciles (3-7) and morons (7-10). As mental age fell out of favor as a way of classifying mental disabilities and IQ began to get used the formal meaning of idiot changed to those with a sub-30 IQ.

Calling someone an idiot is little different to calling someone a retard or in the UK a spastic/spaz (I believe the word has different connotations in the US); it's using a formal medical term for people suffering a disability (even if fallen out of use in the medical community) as an insult.

[Sethala]

Well this kind of exploded overnight...

Still combing through replies for anything I want to respond to, but can we please take the arguments about the semantics of whether using an insult makes you bigoted/racist/sexist/etc to another thread, as that's getting into the "major derailment" category?  Thank you.

The comments about whether gaming communities are too toxic for their own good and why there's a slew of female-oriented insults that are used even when everyone is male are on-topic enough to stay, in my opinion.

[Ephiral]

2 - when the insults of choice - cunt, bitch, get raped, etc. - are generally oriented toward using femininity* as a derogatory state, it's suggestive of misogynistic tendencies even when no women are involved.

This. So much this. When femininity is seen as a way to attack, demean, and insult someone, what does that tell you about how the speaker thinks of women? On a related note, the anti-Sarkeesian camp tends to hate "social justice warriors" and use that term as an insult too. When you're hating on the idea of a just society, and the willingness to fight for this... what does that make you?

[Shjade]

Debating the implications of SJW as a positive/negative term could probably take its own thread, too, honestly.