Category Archives: no games for girls

A Voice for Men’s Honey Badgers ask: Why hasn’t Anita Sarkeesian been harassed MORE?

A Voice for Men’s so-called “Honey Badgers” — its little super-team of female MRAs, led by blabby Canadian videoblogger Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan — have a new theory about Anita Sarkeesian. And it’s a doozy.

Sarkeesian, you may recall, is a feminist cultural critic who’s faced pretty much nonstop harassment from misogynistic internet assholes since she launched a project to dissect sexist tropes in video games. AVFM has contributed, in its own special way, to this wave of harassment, with articles describing Sarkeesian as, among other things, a “moneygrubbing liar” and a “queen bee … girl interloper” in the world of video games; AVFM’s Dean Esmay also held her partially responsible, along with an assortment of other internet feminists, for the suicide of one Canadian Men’s Rights Activist.

The principals at AVFM have blamed her for — either inadvertently or deliberately - bringing this harassment on herself by going to 4chan and posting about her project. (As I noted in a previous post, there’s no actual evidence she ever did this.)

The Honey Badgers, for their part, are certain that getting harassed by 4chaners was part of her devious plan all along.

In a teaser for their internet “radio” show tonight, the “Honey Badger” known as TyphonBlue writes:

Like all professional damsels in distress, Anita Sarkeesian had to choose a good dragon. Just the right looming shadow to fall over her delicate and fragile sensibilities; just the right cackling stage-villain to inspire her cries of helpless horror.

She chose 4-chan. An internet forum known for it’s underbelly of foul-tempered and hair-triggered trolls.

Then, after accusing Sarkeesian of inviting countless rape and death threats upon herself (and only a portion of it from 4channers, I should add), the Badgers take their weird conspiracy theory one step further:

But we at Honey Badger Radio have noticed something… odd. The wave of so-called hate that Anita received from her carefully chosen dragon, wasn’t really all that bad.

Yeah. A year and a half (so far) of pretty much unending harassment and baseless criticism, complete with violent threats directed not only at her but at other women who have defended her — that’s nothing.

Compared to 4-chan’s usual scorched earth strategy–raizing [sic] everything to the ground and pissing on the ashes, Anita got a little singed, like she sat too close to a campfire.

So we have to ask… Did 4-chan white knight Anita? I mean, come on. Was that the best 4 chan could do?

Yes, that’s right. The Honey Badgers are accusing those who sent rape and death threats to Anita Sarkeesian … of “white knighting” her.

I can’t even.

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Men’s Rights Redditor on Gaming: “It would be nice if women/feminists … fucked off and created their own thing rather than moving into a men’s space … .”

George Eliot: Should she have been alllowed to play video games?

George Eliot: Should she have been allowed to play Call of Duty?

So the other day the fellas in the Men’s Rights subreddit were having another thoughtful and nuanced discussion about OMG WOMEN PLAYING VIDEO GAMES GET OUT GIRL GERMS EWWWW GAMING IS FOR MEN ONLY HELP HELP WE’RE BEING OPPRESSED and the always insightful IHaveALargePenis offered this little suggestion to the “feminists/women” of the world:

IHaveALargePenis 25 points 6 days ago (51|26)  It would be nice if women/feminists for once fucked off and created their own thing rather than moving into a men's space (after decades of berating it and the men participating in it) and demanding things change to suit them.  Remember revenge of the nerds? A movie that's about 30 years old? All those "nerds" are the ones in charge of modern technology. They're the Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' of today and people love their products. They didn't have it easy getting to where they did, they sure as shit weren't given a green light for simply being men. So why is it that women aren't walking down the same road? Hell it's not even the same road since most people don't actively insult them or tell them they can't do it for simply being women.  It would be nice if feminists for once proved everyone wrong and themselves right by getting a bunch of women together and creating a new system/industry from the ground up which men want to flock to.

Huh. So in return I guess men would agree to hand science fiction over to the ladies — after all, it was one of them, Mary Shelley, who basically invented the whole genre back in 1818 with her mad-scientist classic Frankenstein.

Mr. Penis also gets bonus points for explicitly conflating women and feminists — most MRAs do this only implicitly, and then pretend they haven’t — and wins this month’s “Really? You Really Just Said That?” MRA Irony Award for declaring in his second paragraph that “people don’t actively insult [women] or tell them they can’t [get involved in nerdy pursuits] for simply being women” after he JUST DID EXACTLY THAT ONE PARAGRAPH EARLIER.

One brave commenter responded to Mr. Penis’ screed with a detailed list of infliential women in the gaming industry. Amazingly, this comment wasn’t downvoted into oblivion, though it is worth noting that it got considerably fewer net upvotes that Mr. Penis’ masterpiece.

The thread, naturally, is full of poop from other contributors as well. Cthulusbaby not only doesn’t want women playing or expressing opinions about games; he doesn’t even want imaginary women in his games. No Manic Pixel Dream Girls for him!

Also, he seems to be under the impression that there are no men in romance movies.*

Cthulusbaby 4 points 5 days ago* (9|5)      what right do men have to claim an entire subculture as "their own space"?  When they are the overwhelming majority of consumers for it? Seriously, look at the demographics of men vs women for games like COD and Gears of War and explain how these online communities AREN'T male spaces?  I don't want female soldiers in my games about elite special forces, because in real life there are no female navy seals or SAS. Women just don't belong, there's no need for them in these games. I like my shoot-em-ups to be testosterone fuelled aggression simulators, not equal opportunity political propaganda.  It's exactly the same as a small but vocal minority of men complaining about male representation in sappy romance movies, and a shit ton of other men jumping on the bandwagon even though they've got no actual interest in it.      Also, you put an unfair and extremely skewed amount of blame on women for the amount of stigmatization placed on "nerds" back in the day. Sure there are women who berate gamers but I think mass media as a whole hasn't been doing that subculture any favors and to say that women are more to blame for that is completely unfounded and absurd.  I think you'll find that women are the primary consumers of TV media, and women are the ones who decide what is attractive and desirable in men. You'll notice that since the "nerd" archetype became more attractive to women, it's moved more into the mainstream and is no longer as socially unacceptable. You really think that is coincidence?  Upvoting you for providing an alternative viewpoint, but you're really misguided.

Acolmiztli, meanwhile, sheds a tear for the nerds that came before him:

acolmiztli 3 points 5 days ago (5|2)  Men were raised in a culture where playing video games was grounds for social pariah status and open hostility. It was amazing that anyone developed a love for computer games to the point of wanting to make it their career!!

Evidently the only way to rectify this past injustice is to do the same thing to women today? It’s the MEN’S RIGHTS WAY!

And hey, if women don’t like it, well, they can always just hide their gender identity. (On the Internet no one knows you’re George Eliot.)

poloppoyop 2 points 5 days ago (4|2)  A lot of free tools have been available for years to make games. Anyone can take the time to learn things, participate in open source softwares etc. If teenagers do it, I don't see what prevents women to do the same. Their gender? Nope, internet offers anonymity so you can participate in some project and people will consider you male until proven otherwise.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Sometimes all it takes to solve these silly lady problems is some good old-fashioned male ingenuity,

H/T to Againstmensrights on Reddits for pointing out Mr. Penis’ lovely remark, and making the same point about science fiction.

-

* Note to extremly literal-minded readers: I am not actually suggesting that Cthulusbaby thinks there are no men in romance movies. It is just that the way he is framing the issue is so ridiculous he might as well think that.

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