Boudica:
Yeah

So you agree with me?

i. LEGO reflects the real world quite realistically

On the subject of gender equality and firefighters, it appears so.

Reinforcing the aging notion that women have their jobs and men their own is totally a good idea

It's reinforcing nothing. It mirrors reality. Hardly any women wish to become firefighters, otherwise the number of firewomen would rise to reflect this want. As far as I know there are no archaic laws, procedures or policies (in the UK) that unfairly restrict females from becoming firefighters. If there were, you could argue they're sexist and I'd agree with you. As it stands, there is no sexism.

Encouraging children to conform to gender roles

Parents and guardians are responsible for this, not capitalistic corporations out to make money.

instead of showing them equality in the work place is a fantastic idea

So are you suggesting there should be a 50/50 gender split in every role, for every children's toy in existence? Ditto children's TV, books and images? Anything less would be showing inequality in the work place, correct?

What about race, where are the black or Asian Lego people? RACISM!

amirite

No put it bluntly, no.

Boudica:

felbot:
also how the hell is lego part of gaming?

Aside from there being about forty Lego video games in the past decade? She was arguing that, much like the video game culture, the Lego environment is a boys' club and reinforces gender stereotypes and plays to subtle sexism. She gave examples such as the fact that almost the entirety of authority type roles and those of heroes in the Lego universe (police officers and firemen, for example) are male, while things such as chefs are women.

While I freely admit I haven't followed this woman's project because I don't think anything useful will come out of it, if she really thinks along those lines, I can start to see where the disdain and hate is coming from?

LEGO, really? I could think of several reasons why a certain LEGO set might feature certain figures as being all, or mostly one gender.

What year was that set made?
What were the %'s of men and women in those fields?
Who designed the figures?
How many varieties of that figure were made?
What's to stop someone from taking a female head, and plonking it on the [insert profession here] body?

Honestly, if you're seeing 'subtle sexism' in LEGO sets, you're really reaching. That's like saying Dante's Inferno is sexist because Dante's girlfriend is the one in need of rescuing. Completely ignoring the fact that it's set in the Crusades.

I'm not saying that the bulk of her work is like that but, if it is, then I can see why people would be upset.

Boudica:
She's constantly making comments and speaking to the community. She's simply asking here how her backers would most like the videos displayed and the information delivered.

Really? Because I read and re-read the quoted post by the OT, and I'm not sure we're seeing the same one. The survey form very clearly asks for the name, year, system, character in need of saving, how it fits into the trope, and a description. It doesn't say anything about presentation. In fact, in her entire post, (not the form bit) there's not a single question asked.

And if she has failed to produce any kind of a video, she is doing it wrong. If Jesse Cox can take a single game, and make close to a hundred videos out of it, she can make one out however many she's gotten through.

Also, what the hell is a faux damsel?

Boudica:
I didn't know when I begun this conversation that I'd need to explain the entire topic. I assumed someone commenting would at least know a little about what's going on.

Like I said, I'm not sure we're seeing the same things here.

SmashLovesTitanQuest:

I'm going to report your post and see what happens. If you don't get a warning, suspension or ban while he does I will laugh my ass off.

Sorry if you found my post that offensive. Reading it back it was pretty aggressively sarcastic so I've taken it down. I guess there's no topic quite so obvious to rile people up as this one!

Lil_Rimmy:
Her reply:

@schnide - Perhaps I can clear up some of your confusions and assumptions:
1. I'd first suggest carefully re-reading the last update.
2. The surveys are not the research. They are simply a way to provide our backers with a meaningful opportunity to participate and offer some feedback or ideas during our already ongoing research process. Over the past couple of months we have been investigating 150+ games for the first video.
3. Perhaps you might want to look up how professional speaking engagements work.

And yet, she very clearly stated that it was data collection in her post. I thought data collection was an important part of researching?

The truly pathetic part is that this forum has effectively done more of her work in the past several months than she has herself.

[douchebaghat]
In response to this travesty, i will be starting a kick starter project to show how great male video game characters are compared to that other group of people. I will require $160,000 for.... research things and the project will take 8 months.

The difference between my project and Sarkeesian is that while i too will do zero research and screw around for the whole time, I will release a video on time. It will be nothing but every male character i can find on google images set slide show style while this song plays in the background

In all honesty, things like this are what will kill kickstarter and ruin all the possible good it could do, Because the internet can never have enough trolls.

what the hell is a faux damsel? A dude in a dress

The Germans have a word for this sweet feeling. Oh sweet Schadenfreude, you excite the pleasure centers of my brain like no other emotion can.

Hollyday:

SmashLovesTitanQuest:

I'm going to report your post and see what happens. If you don't get a warning, suspension or ban while he does I will laugh my ass off.

Sorry if you found my post that offensive. Reading it back it was pretty aggressively sarcastic so I've taken it down. I guess there's no topic quite so obvious to rile people up as this one!

I didn't find it offensive, I just found it to be quite hypocritical. I'm also quite interested to see how the mods meet your post, because if Jeff got a warning back there, you've earned one too.

(For the record - I don't think either your nor Jeffs post were worthy of any mod action, but ya know. Just want to see if they keep a straight line.)

At least all the idiots that donated have been screwed out of their money. We all knew that her series would just be pointing out the obvious but this is just dire, she has more games from most people to choose from yet she can not choose a handful of examples.

Hopefully she does not find this forum as it seems the people on here have done more research on the subject than she ever has.

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
I didn't find it offensive, I just found it to be quite hypocritical. I'm also quite interested to see how the mods meet your post, because if Jeff got a warning back there, you've earned one too.

(For the record - I don't think either your nor Jeffs post were worthy of any mod action, but ya know. Just want to see if they keep a straight line.)

Well, I suppose trolling a troll is never a very good idea. Lesson learnt.

Wait.. Lego is sexist because there are less female lego characters than male?
OK, So can we agree that more boys play with lego than girls? at least when I was playing with lego that was the case. Isn't it just logical then, that there are more male lego characters? What boy would want to play as a female?

Boudica:

Savagezion:

Boudica:
"Of the 100 parts, 1 is sexist."

What it means: a small portion of the larger whole is sexist.
What you think it means: the whole 100 is sexist? BULLSHIT!

That 1 part isn't sexist though, otherwise an escort mission where a woman escorts a man is sexist. Which means it is sexist simply for being an escort mission where both sexes are involved. The only way for it to be not to be sexist is for a man to escort another man or ditto for women. (Which is a incredibly retarded requirement for story tellers to have to concede to EVERY single time.) Escort missions aren't sexist. This entire "trope" completely ignores context and considering you are taking aim at storytelling, ignoring the subject of context as if it is irrelevant is monumentally stupid and demonstrates you have no clue what you are talking about and are just spouting gibberish.

You're missing the forest for the trees. No one has a problem with ONE instance. The problem is that women are largely EXPECTED to be the weak ones.

No, you just defended ONE instance and called it sexist. You singled it out, ignored the context of the situation present in Thief and called it sexist. Anita completely is doing that. There are so many holes in her logic, it represents dots instead of one cohesive idea with a few spots not filled in. Most of her argument is random bits that happen to belong to the same theme. She has no voice because she cant form an argument to save her life. It is painful to watch for myself. The fact that people spout her degree is painful too. A college degree isn't that hard to get guys. Time is the most costly part of it.

I won't argue women aren't largely expected to be the weak ones. But shouldn't the first logical question be "why is that?" and randomly spouting "its because men are sexist" is foolish and offers no REAL answer. Wouldn't focusing on that question for her show be more interesting? Or do you guys really want a video about "Damsel in Distress is sexist"? That shit is elementary comparatively and requires no college degree. I could randomly throw some garbage that is substantiated out there on that topic with no research outside of 1 or 2 sources. Why does she need research money for something so easily exposed? This woman is wandering aimlessly through the topic of sexism and is jaded. Hell, she refuses to acknowledge "I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" as a kid seeing his Mother kiss his father in cosplay and says the song makes women out to be slutty. There are no words for that kind of stupid blatant agenda pushing. Anyone who thinks this woman is smart, I pray they are young and naive.

Blunderboy:
Well at least we now know who the Britta of the Escapist is.

"Guys, we've gotta to do something about these gnomes!!!"

Made me think of this instantly.

Boudica:

>Implies there's no difference between a weak character and centuries of depiction.

No one cares about one weak character. No one. Not the most extreme feminist or the most apathetic passerby. No one cares. The problem is when almost every single woman in video games is secondary, weaker than everyone else, helpless and/or there to help the men.

One damsel in distress isn't sexism. Showing nothing but weak women, however, is.

Actually, they pretty clearly do. One of the games she (Anita) was talking about only has one female character, who is also apparently weak. Now, I've never played an Ico game, but I'm pretty sure there are more then just the two people in the world.

Sean951:
This site makes me sad. She is accountable to her backers, and never intended to get that much money. That we are still dismissing her for being "unattractive" does lend credence to her argument though.

I don't think it was a scam, and considering she has her Masters and has taught at a college level, I think she may have just gotten in a little to deep and needs a starting point.

The "unattractive" dismissals make up a minority of the complaints about her on this site. Most of the main complaints about her the fact that she already has a well established YouTube series with over 30,000 subscriber and multiple "seasons".

People are calling it a scam because she's quite honestly didn't even need the $6,000 she asked for to make this Tropes vs. Women series. Another major hit to her reputation is the fact that, as much as she likes to tout the fact that she has a Masters degree, her own thesis is a pile of contradictions:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gLmcS3-NI

One more thing she has going against her is the fact that she hasn't been transparent at all about what she was going to do with the money she received in the first place.

Faraja:

Lil_Rimmy:
Her reply:

@schnide - Perhaps I can clear up some of your confusions and assumptions:
1. I'd first suggest carefully re-reading the last update.
2. The surveys are not the research. They are simply a way to provide our backers with a meaningful opportunity to participate and offer some feedback or ideas during our already ongoing research process. Over the past couple of months we have been investigating 150+ games for the first video.
3. Perhaps you might want to look up how professional speaking engagements work.

And yet, she very clearly stated that it was data collection in her post. I thought data collection was an important part of researching?

Well, the important thing is that she insulted the person questioning the legitimacy of the project needlessly who is also one of her backers. The more she does dumb crap like this, the more I feel people would donate money to me. At least I have enough class to not insult you for but apologize for making you feel your money was misplaced. This chick has issues.

Next person who makes a Sarkeesian thread will be on my list of people who's houses I cover in shit next time I'm lowering property value.

Casual Shinji:

Blunderboy:
Well at least we now know who the Britta of the Escapist is.

"Guys, we've gotta to do something about these gnomes!!!"

Made me think of this instantly.

Great episode. I watched that one again yesterday. :D

Faraja:

Boudica:

>Implies there's no difference between a weak character and centuries of depiction.

No one cares about one weak character. No one. Not the most extreme feminist or the most apathetic passerby. No one cares. The problem is when almost every single woman in video games is secondary, weaker than everyone else, helpless and/or there to help the men.

One damsel in distress isn't sexism. Showing nothing but weak women, however, is.

Actually, they pretty clearly do. One of the games she (Anita) was talking about only has one female character, who is also apparently weak. Now, I've never played an Ico game, but I'm pretty sure there are more then just the two people in the world.

You've never played any of their games, but want to comment on them anyway? Oh that's nice. I've never been to Mars, but I'm pretty sure it's full of snow and Ferrari's.

Thoric485:
You could say she's a damsel in distress herself.

Heyooooooo!

Why does she need a survey when she could just spend an afternoon on TV Tropes to do her research?

Can we just ignore it, like all the other extremists trying to impose their crap on "video games" in the past, from religious extremists to right-wing media and all that claiming that video games create serial killers, Bulletstorm causes rape and that the nudity in Mass Effect will cause the end of the western civilization through corrupting all the children and just make it go away, please?

Also, fools parted with their money... how unexpected, it's not like ANYONE predicted this turn of events...

If anything that's the only thing I can commend her for, she successfully sensationalized the issue on basis of a few YouTube comments and got people like John Walker and other "journalists" all riled up, defensive and protective gaining over $150.000 for a YouTube series other people are already doing for free. Not to mention the amount of money she will likely make with YouTube Partnership and similar, so I guess she turned a few YouTube comments and some 4chan shenanigans into being set for the next 5 years and having quite a few vacations in Europe, props for that...

I don't care for Sarkeesian myself but the hate for her is getting absurd to the point of me believing that even if see apologized and admitted that she's done foolish things with the extra money people would find ways to hate her for it.

Blunderboy:

Casual Shinji:

Blunderboy:
Well at least we now know who the Britta of the Escapist is.

"Guys, we've gotta to do something about these gnomes!!!"

Made me think of this instantly.

Great episode. I watched that one again yesterday. :D

Except ofcourse for the beleaguered gnomes, it like completely downplays the whole episode. They should've just put a ladder climbing donkey or a sack of potatoes in place of it and it wouldn't have made any dfference at all, right? *Sarkeesian logic*

I imagine she would have found a publisher if she was compotent; had a plan and was able to articulate it him, her, or them. Falling short on that goal she preyed upon the foolishness of the well meaning masses and made a small fortune without doing any of the work.

Good on her.

Boudica:
Plenty? No. Some? Yup. Your point? Or did you not read and are simply commenting on the knee-jerk?

If we take a bit of anecdotal evidence, just by looking at my game shelf;

Assassin's Creed; the main character is a man, and his enemies are men. It takes place in the medieval Middle East, so not really a surprise. Of course, there's Fishlips (who's name I've forgotten).

Assassin's Creed II: Fishlips appears to be in charge of her little gang of miscreants. The main character is still a man, but his future love interest seems pretty capable, and a few of those statues you put the crests into are female.

Batman Arkham City: Cat Woman and Poison Ivy, 'nough said. Also Harley Quinn.

Blazing Angels: A game about WWII American Pilots. As far as I know, there were no female characters.

Fallout 3: The main character could be female, you're child hood friend can go on to become the head of the Vault, and the majority of female characters (except for the Nuka Cola crackpot) seem pretty damn capable. They even hang out with the men in the bandit gangs.

Dance Central: Moving on.

Dead Rising: You have blondie who doesn't do much, except kill some spec. force guys after being zombified, which was pretty awesome, and Carlos' (that was Captain Ponce's name, right?) sister, who saves your ass. Otherwise, none of the characters are even the slightest bit capable.

Dragon Age: Think that one's pretty damn obvious.

Dragon Age Awakening: Never got very far, so I couldn't say.

Fable II: Main character can be a woman, one of the Heroes is a woman with a massive fuck-off hammer. 99% of the NPCs are otherwise useless.

Halo: Cortana who literally saves the galaxy and, in the expanded Universe, boosts Chief's abilities. You also have Echo 419, who flies into the thick of things without any sort of protest.

Halo 2: Cortana, again, but now you add in Commander Keyes.

Halo 3: Some more of Cortana and Keyes. Though, Keyes does end up dying in the end.

Halo ODST: The one female character is in charge of the whole damn unit.

Halo Reach: The main character can be a female, and has the most heroic death of all. Plus the Lt. Commander is a bad ass.

Halo Wars: Haven't gotten very far, but the one female character seems pretty capable.

Jurassic Park the Game: The main female protagonist is made up of pure bad ass, and so is the daughter.

Mortal Kombat: It's a game about people inflicting injuries on other people that they, by rights, should not survive. Though, towards the end, a female character kills about 75% of the good guys.

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: The main character can be a woman. Approximately 100% of all the NPCs are useless.

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Some of the NPCs aren't useless, and the female NPC companions all seem rugged and tough.

Star Craft and Star Craft II: Kerrigan. That is all.

World of Warcraft and Warcraft III: Jaina saves humanity, and the world. In WoW, all the characters, regardless of gender, are treated as equal.

And those are just the games on my main shelf. That's not even counting Mass Effect, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Analogue: A Hate Story (you want to see strong women, and tough themes, that is the 'game' for you), or about a dozen others. Really, I can't think of a single game where the women that actually matter aren't capable.

Casual Shinji:

Blunderboy:
Well at least we now know who the Britta of the Escapist is.

"Guys, we've gotta to do something about these gnomes!!!"

Made me think of this instantly.

I often think of this bit.

Just relax people. Yelling at people is pretty much the worst way to change their opinion about you.

Boudica:

Faraja:

Boudica:

>Implies there's no difference between a weak character and centuries of depiction.

No one cares about one weak character. No one. Not the most extreme feminist or the most apathetic passerby. No one cares. The problem is when almost every single woman in video games is secondary, weaker than everyone else, helpless and/or there to help the men.

One damsel in distress isn't sexism. Showing nothing but weak women, however, is.

Actually, they pretty clearly do. One of the games she (Anita) was talking about only has one female character, who is also apparently weak. Now, I've never played an Ico game, but I'm pretty sure there are more then just the two people in the world.

You've never played any of their games, but want to comment on them anyway? Oh that's nice. I've never been to Mars, but I'm pretty sure it's full of snow and Ferrari's.

Boudica, I don't know if you're insane or forgetful but he is right. There are more than two people in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. You're having a go at people with no argument to back yourself up. Also judging by the lack of a response to my 'positive' female examples I can only conclude that you have no evidence to back yourself up.

This kind of annoys me you know, she has a different opinion than all of you so you accuse her of being a scammer and not knowing what she is talking about despite her having the relevant qualifications.

If you disagree with her then admit it, don't bottle out and make excuses about non existent scams.

She never even asked for the amount of money she got and performing surveys is kind of a big part of research...

If Yahtzee or Extra Credits had done this you would have all been falling over yourselves to give them money but because it's a woman (and worse a feminist!) you just can't stand it. Hell Jim Sterling and Movie Bob have made quite a few intelligent videos commenting on sexism in games and none of you seems to think they are evil?

I suppose only people with dicks are allowed to have opinions on videogames.

fuzz:

Boudica, I don't know if you're insane or forgetful but he is right. There are more than two people in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. You're having a go at people with no argument to back yourself up. Also judging by the lack of a response to my 'positive' female examples I can only conclude that you have no evidence to back yourself up.

I don't know about Shadow of the Collosus but in ICO there are three characters with presence.

-The little boy who is there to save the day

-The damsel in distress

-The evil queen who kills children (nice) and her group of masked knights who enforce her children killing ways.

Such positive roll models for young women! :p

ICO is sexist in a kind of old style fairytale kind of way and frankly when I was 4 years old I was making a face at these situations.

One story in particular. The King notices his daughters are wearing their shoes out so he says anyone who can find out where they are going can have the eldest's hand in marriage (facepalm) So this guy finds out they are going out and partying all night right. So he tells the king, he gets the princess and THEY ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO GO AND DANCE AGAIN.

Even in my fresh toddler mind I could not comprehend how much bullshit that is. Seriously. I noticed that the story was on Jackonory recently (British kids tv show) and they changed the ending to the princess' being allowed to openly dance. Society has moved on from this crap so why hasn't video games.

Boudica:

fuzz:
And you are wrong.

Prove it. Go ahead and show me anything even close to equal representation of women and men in video games. No cop-outs, no half-assed excuses. Actually show me right now that there is anywhere near as many strong women in video games as there are men.

If I can show you more men than you can women, you are wrong.

How is fuzz wrong? Seriously? I don't think anyone's saying that the numbers are equal. You, however, said that there are only some strong women in video, but disagreed that there are plenty. Plenty doesn't mean more than, unless you only feel that you have plenty of something if you have more of it than something else.

Moonlight Butterfly:
This kind of annoys me you know, she has a different opinion than all of you so you accuse her of being a scammer and not knowing what she is talking about despite her having the relevant qualifications.

If you disagree with her then admit it, don't bottle out and make excuses about non existent scams.

She never even asked for the amount of money she got and performing surveys is kind of a big part of research...

If Yahtzee or Extra Credits had done this you would have all been falling over yourselves to give them money but because it's a woman (and worse a feminist!) you just can't stand it. Hell Jim Sterling and Movie Bob have made quite a few intelligent videos commenting on sexism in games and none of you seems to think they are evil?

I suppose only people with dicks are allowed to have opinions on videogames.

fuzz:

Boudica, I don't know if you're insane or forgetful but he is right. There are more than two people in Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. You're having a go at people with no argument to back yourself up. Also judging by the lack of a response to my 'positive' female examples I can only conclude that you have no evidence to back yourself up.

I don't know about Shadow of the Collosus but in ICO there are three characters with lines.

-The little boy who is there to save the day

-The damsel in distress

-The evil queen who kills children (nice) and her group of masked knights who enforce her children killing ways.

Such positive roll models for young women! :p

Real life statistics show women perpetuate violence on children more than men. That's just a fact. Don't get upset if you can't handle that a videogame would show that.

Who's the damsel in distress now?

(Sorry, had to say it even though it's already been said so many times :P).

But in all seriousness, if her whole project flops despite the $160,000 raised it will be nothing short of a huge blow to the entire subject of female tropes in gaming.

I won't be surprised if the gaming industry in general simply dismisses her as just another angry straw feminist - it would be ironic considering she claimed to frown upon straw feminism.

Hey guys whats going o...

fuzz:
snip

Ah but do you see that there is in fact no positive female characters in ICO?. Which was your point in the first place or have you forgotten what you were talking about already?.

Do you have any evidence to back up that statement?

Moonlight Butterfly:

fuzz:
snip

Ah but do you see that there is in fact no positive female characters in ICO?. Which was your point in the first place or have you forgotten what you were talking about already?.

And that makes the game sexist or bad how exactly?

There's no positive female role model in Silent Hill 2 either.

Really? She couldn't have...I don't know...HIRED some of her fellow sociology researchers to do a part of the data collection for her. Girl's got a buttload of money, 300+ games, and it's not all that weird to include other qualified people into a large project. Hell, having more people give their expert opinion on the matter will only improve it, right?

right?

Anyway I do see why it's a good subject to research on. A few years ago, I had to play pokémon and Harvest Moon as a dude. Even now, In a lot of good, storydriven games I'm stuck as one, or at least, I feel that I do.

Living out a fantasy is fine, that's what fiction's for. But continually using male centered fantasies is a vicious circle: There are only a few women into games because they're made for men and because only men are into games, the games are made for men, which is why few women are into games...

It's getting better though, since my pokémon days a lot of female protagonists have popped up besides Samus and Lara Croft or otherwise, we're given a choice(which is, if you ask me the perfect way to make a character that isn't discriminating. Give us the choice and make sure that the character fits all the narratives.)

I'm not saying there is a difference between the amount of female and male leads, but isn't that what the research is for? Even here on the forums, you hear people going "WE NEED MORE FEMALES" and others going "NO, IT'S EVENLY DIVIDED" but no-one can find the numbers, the facts. If Sarkeesian can prove that yes, there are a lot more women in secondary roles and this percentage of games employs the damsel in distress trope (Based on several criteria, made before the data collection starts)then maybe we can turn feelings into facts and tell people, look guys, we're not there yet.

Alternatively, if there is an even divide, and we do have plenty of femmes in games, then we can say, well, okay, so this is how it should be and the movie industry/the science department/the construction workers should all take example from the gaming community.

The point is, you'd need to investigate games from every gaming studio, in a time frame of 50 years or so, make note of the changes that are already occurring and THEN state how you want to improve things down the line. Whether by using the community as a positive example or advocating for more girls in a productive way.

I'm just not sure if Sarkeesian's the one to do it. I don't trust her to publish a research that would prove her wrong, she'll only focus on the aspects she likes and needs to advocate HER opinion.