#Gamergate and a Continuing Culture of Violence
I am an addict to the Twitter flow. It keeps me up to date with all my news, friends, and many obessions—all within 150 characters for my short attention span! (Time for some shameless self-promotion: @PragyaProject is a quality Twitter account). Anyways, I follow a few feminist accounts that usually give me a heads up on what events are occurring in the world of women’s issues. Today, many of them were retweeting the Feminist Frequency over #gamergate. Not quite sure exactly what this hashtag was about, I looked into it.
Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist media critic and founder of Feminist Frequency, was forced to cancel her lecture last night at Utah State University after the university received a terror threat from someone claiming they would commit “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if Sarkeesian spoke. The email warned of an attack much like the Montreal massacre, when Marc Lepine opened fire on the classroom of female engineering students screameing, “I hate feminists” and killing 14 of them.
Feminist Frequency is the platform when Sarkeesian discuses the sexist and misogynistic tropes in video games and critiques gamer culture. Despite multiple threats of death and rape, she refuses to let the terrorists silence her. The only reason why Sarkeesian did not go on with her talk was because Utah’s open carry law meant no firearm searches could be conducted. Gamer Gate refers to the aggressive culture war that exists between gaming critics like Sarkeesian and mobs of gamers. However, it is beginning to seem more like an excuse for the harassment of women in the gaming industry.
I have a very limited knowledge of the gaming world (do the games on disneychannel.com even count?), but I can find no legitimacy in the support for Gamer Gate. The men behind Gamer Gate have been rejected by alpha-male dominated society. Instead of recognizing the issues with hypermasculinity, they mirror it, resulting in alarming displays of violence. Imran Siddiquee explains the solution to this violence the best:
I have extreme admiration for Anita Sarkeesian and all other women in the gaming industry who are standing firm against this misogyny. Words are powerful, and no level of violence or oppression will silence the voices of strong women such these.
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4 Responses to “#Gamergate and a Continuing Culture of Violence”
As someone who is part of the gaming world, I think you’re a bit confused about what gamer gate is. It has nothing at all to do with Anita, it’s a scandal involving a female indie game developer who, according to her ex-boyfriend, slept with gaming journalists in exchange for positive reviews.
The biggest issue gamers, both male and female, have with Anita Sarkeesian is that she is an outsider who is unfairly criticizing something we love and demanding that women be included (women already make up 48% of gamers). The other reason for the criticism is how she conducts her videos: She’s been caught numerous times using gameplay footage from various ‘let’s play’ channels without giving credit, suggesting that she doesn’t even play the games that she critiques.
This is actually really interesting, although I’m still a little unsure as to what Gamer Gate actually is and what they do (is it just a bunch of gamer guys against women in the gaming industry?) I do really like the tweets though! As much as social media gets bashed, it really does a great job of keeping people connected and up to date with various things that you might not otherwise come across in the news or some other source. Sarkeesian and other women are definitely very admirable for standing strong when being threatened such as in this case. Things like this give me pride in being a woman.
I actually saw something about this on the news I believe and was beyond shocked. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that the open carry laws are able to trump the safety of college students and distinguished speakers. Almost as ridiculous as the entire Gamer Gate movement itself. I don’t even understand where the impetus for this group began, nor why it should have enough followers to pose an actual threat. I think this was one of your most interesting posts yet.
Pragya, this was interesting post. I’m still a little unsure of what Gamer Gate is and its link a culture of hate. It would be great if you could elaborate more upon that and upon Sarkeesian’s role in gaming. I liked your analysis of her actions! Also, it would be interesting if you could write a further blog post about the specifics of anti-feminist gaming tropes, as they were glanced over in this post (I know this post wasn’t entirely about that). I respect Sarkeesian for her bravery in a situation that could any of us at unease.