Yesterday, the video game world learned what games were coming out for the Xbox One. They learned what the PlayStation 4 was going to look like (and that Sony would be treating them like human beings, rather than perpetual money farms). They learned what the industry was planning in terms of next-gen innovation.
What was a day of revelations for some, turned out to be another day of disappointment for others. Among this latter group was Anita Sarkeesian, producer of the popular (and controversial) Feminist Frequency blog and video series. In the course of her series, she has done a number of episodes on video games; she eventually spun these off into a webseries of their own, “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” — the funding for which she Kickstarted in 2012.
After the Xbox One E3 presentation was over, Sarkeesian tweeted:
Thanks #XboxOne #E3 press conference for revealing to us exactly zero games featuring a female protagonist for the next generation.
This is a legitimate — not to mention factual — observation to make, especially considering that we’re on the verge of a new era of video games, and it is a little underwhelming to see the game industry continue to make some of the same mistakes it made during the current generation.
But this simple tweet was enough to set bros across the Dudernet spinning into a frenzy. Sarkeesian has gathered a selection of 50 choice responses to her on Tumblr. Click if you dare.
So what’s the deal? Why are these dudebros freaking out so badly?
Because that has more or less been the norm since last May, when Sarkeesian announced her Kickstarter campaign for Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. Groups of rabid geek dudes under the banner of “Men’s Rights Activism” — not to mention from other areas of the misogynist dudersphere — have been sending her disgusting and threatening emails, reporting her videos to YouTube any time she posts, and more, all in an effort to get her to shut up.
Some of the more refined blowhards have levied the criticism that her analysis of feminist issues — whether they relate to video games or not — are so painfully 101-level that they’re unnecessary. But every time she says something, it seems as though the same dudes on the Dudernet say the same stuff that makes her have to make videos with 101-level content. And it seems to happen every time she tries to get her ideas out there — with such ferocity and quantity that she doesn’t even need to reach very far to find 50 examples on Twitter alone of people being misogynist or downright threatening right off the bat.
It’s pretty clear, by this point, that the people going after her (and everyone else who comes close to saying that the way women are treated in a variety of settings is messed up, to say the very least) don’t want to have a discussion. They want everyone — not just Sarkeesian, but everyone — to stop talking about the wimminfolk and their involvement in their sacred ritual of vidya gamin’ and let the big strong haven’t-seen-the-sun-in-weeks-because-of-a-WOW-raid menfolk do all the vidya gamin’ by their lonesome. That just won’t do.
Is there a feminist connection to video games, you ask? Yes. Why? Because developers like Naughty Dog still have to fight major distributors to get a female lead on the cover of their games. Because we’re still arguing over whether “fake geek girls” exist. Because any time a woman speaks about video games, they’re shut down with increasing volume.