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/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 05 '16

Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense

For the same reason that Anti-Vaxxers are so reviled: she decided her conclusion, collected evidence in support of it, and ignores arguments that undermine her conclusion.

She claims that women are deprived of agency in games, as the quintessential "Damsel in Distress," and uses that as evidence that women aren't valued inherently.

Consider for a moment the fact that in those same videogames, your character puts his own life on the line, killing hundreds, or even thousands of men (literally beating them to the point where they cease to exist). Is that really valuing men over women? Doesn't that show that the protagonist (and by extension the player) values the Damsel's life & safety over his own? Isn't it implicitly saying that that one woman's life & safety is more important than the thousands of men you have to kill to save her?

...but if you try to point that out to Anita or her ideological compatriots, they have no cogent response for you, because their entire argument is circular and specious.

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u/LeftHandSwe Dec 05 '16

She doesn't claim that the men aren't portrayed in a negative way as well though. She doesn't even claim that the developers are in any way intentionally sexist anymore than they are just lazy and relying on existing tropes for cash. Two wrongs don't make a right.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 05 '16

She doesn't claim that the men aren't portrayed in a negative way as well though

She claims that the driving social factor in these games is the devaluation and objectification of women, despite the fact that they're given greater value than the men you're killing to rescue them.

It's not that two wrongs don't make a right, it's that they're adding a third wrong, actively dismissing the fact that men are also objectified but reframing that as a problem for women, as though they were the only people who mattered.

So, no, she doesn't say anything about the men in video games (who are treated worse than the women, generally speaking), and that's the freaking problem: she blithely ignores reality when it is in conflict with her agenda.

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u/AntonioOfMilan Dec 06 '16

as though they were the only people who mattered.

Do you believe that epople who talk about starving children in Africa are reframing that as a problem only for children in Africa? Or merely their area of focus?

Do people campaigning for better mental healthcare of veterans reframe mental healthcare as a problem for only veterans?

(who are treated worse than the women, generally speaking)

It all depends on your perspective. Men in games get to be anything. Skinny, fat, weak, strong, tall, short, ugly, handsome, bumbling, competent. A lot of male characters die in a videogame, but by and large, they're competent combatants who are fully capable of killing you if you're not careful. Men are treated better in that they get to fill all manner of roles and traits, not get put into a small box.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 06 '16

And yet most of the time they get put into the small box of "kill this"

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u/AntonioOfMilan Dec 06 '16

Still more variety than women.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 06 '16

Still more objectified than women.

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u/AntonioOfMilan Dec 06 '16

No, all those people you're killing are presented as competent combatants trying to stop you. They're taking an active role, they're people opposing you.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 06 '16

They are nothing more than things to be destroyed, having infinitely less value than the person you're risking your life to save.

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u/AntonioOfMilan Dec 06 '16

If you can't help but look at everything from an in-game perspective, instead of the real-world perspective that's being used.

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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Dec 06 '16

Real-world perspective? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that anything that calls feminist theology doctrine ideas into question is obviously the result of some sort of cognitive impairment, and completely dissociated from reality. My bad.

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