The case of Sarkeesian vs. Male Privilege continues

Originally posted by weber_dubois22 at The case of Sarkeesian vs. Male Privilege continues
TRIGGER WARNING(s): Slut Shaming, Rape culture, Mentions of Abuse, Harassment

I tend to be pretty lucky around these parts. Occasionally, someone will show up in comments here and complain about the fact that we’re talking about pop culture rather than politics, and y’all will set that person straight. Once in a very little while, a true creep will show up and comment on my looks based on a cartoon of my face, my sex life based on…I’m not even sure what exactly, or fantasize about seeing violence done to me, in which case the banhammer comes out, sometimes before y’all can even run them off. And as a media critic who does a lot of feminist work, I hate the fact that I’m grateful for the fact that I’m not harassed for doing my job.

Which is why I was so angry to hear about what’s happened to Anita Sarkeesian. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with her plight, Sarkeesian wanted to start a project to cover a subject that’s not exactly radical: the portrayal of women in video games. Her YouTube account, in which she explains the project, was flooded with comments equating her to the KKK, calling her a “fucking hypocrite slut,” comparing the project to an act of war, and flagging the video as promoting hatred or violence. Her Wikipedia page was vandalized, her picture replaced with pornographic images, and people tried to get the Kickstarter proposal Sarkeesian was using to raise money to support the project shut down. Fortunately, in this case, despite past issues with harassment victims, it seems like Kickstarter’s been more helpful to Sarkeesian than not.

But the whole incident is a reminder of how deeply some men are invested not simply in the structures that provide them tangible advantages, but in the conventions that let them wallow in culture that indulges their worst, stupidest impulses. And if folks are willing to fight this hard against someone doing criticism of culture, there are others who will do worse to preserve the laws that give them privilege in the world. Culture in this area, as in so many others, is a canary in a coal mine. And women who complain about online harassment aren’t being oversensitive: they’re trying to stop an ugly cycle before it spirals out of control. Both psychologically and substantively, it’s key to our ability to do our work. [Anita Sarkeesian, Video Game Rape Culture, and Why Online Harassment Is Not a Joke]

The Escalating Campaign Against Anita Sarkeesian And The Long-Term Weakness of Sexist Trolls

I can’t even bring myself to embed it here: some trogolodytes have created a game that lets players beat up Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist video blogger who’s been subject to an unremitting campaign of harassment since she created a Kickstarter to support a project to explore tropes of female characters in video games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: anyone who thinks that feminists who push back hard against online harassment are being oversensitive needs to understand that we’re all trying to keep ourselves from becoming Anita Sarkeesians. No matter how strong you are, and no matter how much support you have, this kind of concentrated campaign of harassment affects the targets of it. And the goal of these campaigns is to terrorize people into silence. It’s not disagreement. It’s not creative trolling. It’s deployment of a weapon.

And even though it’s frightening, ugly stuff, the campaign waged against Sarkeesian illustrates the fundamental cowardice and weakness of the people attacking her. If you so lack confidence in your ideas, if you’re so uncomfortable defending your appreciation for problematic things (which, by the way, is tricky but not that tricky) that you can’t even put your hands over your ears and sing loudly and ignore them, that you have to actually go out and try to prevent anyone from from saying anything that could make you remotely uneasy, you are a coward. That’s cold comfort to folks like Sarkeesian who have to go through this now. But it’s why, long-term, angry, petty sexists are going to lose, and why it’s important to throw up bulwarks against trolls who try to venture out of their holes and take over mainstream conversations. These ideas don’t stand-up to discussion and debate. And sexist trolls can’t shut down all of those debates, no matter how hard they try. [SOURCE]