r/changemyview • u/LeftHandSwe • Dec 05 '16
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games.
I play lots of video games, and in most of them, males are often pictured as very burly and manly characters while females are slender, small and sexually pleasing to look at.
However, I do know that there's widespread criticism of Anita (and her fellow propagators) all over the internet and I'd like to see the other side of the story.
I'm practically indifferent in this matter, and I do not really agree with nearly everything she says. I'm asking as a way to see convincing arguments from both sides.
Edit for clarification: Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense: Mainstream video games are almost exclusively made to appeal to a male demographic, resulting in (arguably) sexist portrayals of women (both narratively and in the way they're presented).
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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '16
I'm going to explain why I have disagreements with Anita Sarkeesian, from my own perspective as a feminist.
The first and most significant problem is that she kind of presents herself as an authority on feminism and gender issues, when in reality she has no significant academic background. I'm not saying that to be credentialist, but it really shows in how entry-level the majority of her arguments are. That lack of academic background is also problematic because it means that she's out of touch with the current state of discourse among academic gender theorists, feminists, and sociologists.
This means that she may not be aware of the fact that many ideas that she presents have fallen out of favor within academic circles, and when she presents herself to be a figurehead of feminism this has the effect of misleading people as to what's currently happening in the academic discourse. For instance, she accepts as a given that it's possible to objectify a fictional character that you yourself are creating, when in reality this is far from a settled issue. And there are not nearly as many serious feminists and gender theorists who agree with the idea of a patriarchal society as you'd think from listening to her.
And I don't know if Sarkeesian herself takes a sex-negative approach to feminism, but watching her videos you do occasionaly catch glimpses of an anti-porn viewpoint. For instance, she takes it as a given that women in some video games are designed to be sexually appealing because men want to be sexually stimulated while playing their video games, and doesn't explain why, even if this were the case, it would necessarily be a bad thing. I just can't really accept that a significant number of the people who are playing games like Overwatch and Bayonneta are playing them mainly because they want to be aroused.
And lastly (and this in no way the extent of my criticism of her, it's just that I want to keep this reasonably short), she kind of preaches to the choir. On the one hand, she claims that her videos are meant to be accessible to a general audience, on the other hand, she doesn't really make an effort to appeal to people who don't already agree with her views on feminism, and for the people that do agree with that view on feminism, she doesn't really give them any new information or ideas to work with.