Category Archives: video games
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.
Should gaming be a “safe space” for nerdy dudes who hate women? The Men’s Rights perspective
I’m back from a brief vacation in Migraineland, and thinking about the ways in which Men’s Rights Activists love to appropriate the language of feminism and other progressive movements, usually in ways that are face-palmingly ass-backwards.
Take this recent discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit of the dire threat of “fake gamer girls” invading the “male space” of gaming. The generically named guywithaccount sets up the discussion with this post:
Angry gamer dude: Men need sexy video game babes, because real-world women are fatties
Male gamers suffer terribly when they can’t look at game gals like these, from Gotham City Impostors
The gaming enthusiast known as seanmalstrom seems to be on a personal crusade to challenge the stereotype of men as the “logical sex.” He does this mostly by 1) being a dude and 2) writing things that make no sense at all.
In a recent post on his blog Malstrom’s Articles News – no, that’s really what it’s called – Mr. Malstrom attempts to rebut a piece by John Walker of the gaming site Rock Paper Shotgun that challenged misogyny in the gaming world.
