Topic: The Koopalings promote misogyny?

I tried, now look at me:

She's pretty much a fraud claiming to promote equality.

That technology looks quite expensive. Around 150K I'd say

… they do though. Toadette is female and in Mario RPG there is clearly male and female Toads in all the little villages. That might be true about the Yoshis though.

I definitely don't agree with everything see says but I'll admit, her videos are interesting and well put together. A lot of thought was put into them.

(He's the one on the right)

Now now, just because she embezzled millions of dollars on Kickstarter doesn't make her a fraud.

I tend to disagree. I think she selectively quotes evidence to support theories that she doesn't openly admit she's trying to push. Selectively quoting evidence to support a particular theory is from a scientific point of view, completely meaningless. It's like me claiming that I have a weighted dice that is biased in favour of landing on 6. When you then ask to see the evidence, I just show 3 different videos of the dice landing on 6. Without seeing it in the larger context and presented in a statistical manner, it means nothing. Those sixes could've just happened 1/6th of the time like a normal dice and you just picked them out.
(And to be clear, I think a lot of the biases she points out are actually true. She just doesn't get anywhere close to demonstrating that they are)

Now to put this in the best way. I will say that she has brought up decent points, but they aren't anything that hasn't been brought up by somebody else long before she's made anything. On top of that, the official KS campaign that was successfully funded has failed to deliver the promised products on numerous fronts.

Now, there are many other people who try to talk about the same thing who don't have the money or the popularity to make these kinds of videos. They are usually shunned for their quality or views on other smaller issues, and that's just saddening.

I won't say anything negative, but I recommend watching her video about Legos and then reading about the Lego Friends theme. Make your opinions from there.
I will say nothing further (partially out of fear.)

Ouch

There was this thing, with the internets, and shots were fired. Dogmatic close minded idiots on all sides. So at this point whenever anything surrounding any of said happenings come up? Nothing good can come of it. I'm all for a good debate on the topic but at this point I don't think that's at all possible.

If a debate does start, then some people will find it and sign up just to argue heavily for one side. I've seen it happen many times before.
That's why I'm dancing around any "accusations."

Not with the amount of mental gymnastics and projection it takes to actually come up with ideas and accusations such as this.

I think in order to have a debate one must understand how to argue in the first place, an art that seems to have been lost in the Internet age.

The idea that "picking and choosing" information to support your point of view isn't disingenuous or deceitful, that's actually how you make an argument: you state a position and have evidence to back it up. Others can disagree with you and to have weight they need to cite information that counters your point and/or undermine their evidence. The problem is that people don't really listen to what Anita is saying - her whole argument, not just about Wendy having bows, which isn't her issue at all. Consequently most of the responses to her are ill-formed nonsense because they didn't get what she was saying in the first place due to not listening.

The problem with Wendy and Toadette is as basic as tokenism and the fact that underlining their token female status involves tired tropes like putting a bow on it because of the fact that in the video game universe male tends to be the default much like "white" is from a racial perspective. Now there are exceptions but historically and right now this is overwhelmingly the case. I don't even understand how anyone can try to debate the issue with a straight face.

She started a Kickstarter to talk about 'Tropes VS Women in Video Games' and got it fully funded. She then proceeded to make videos that stole content from other YouTubers without asking, and blatantly misrepresented gameplay footage in order to make her points. She also deflects any possible criticism against her videos as people being misogynistic or harassment.

This collectively pretty much killed any valid points she may have held on the matter.

The problem is coming to a conclusion and then desperately trying to look for evidence to back it up. It's supposed to work the other way. Also, a lot of what she uses as evidence is simply a misrepresentation or lies. You don't prove a point with lies. You don't expect people to simply look past that and take your stance on a matter as truth despite all evidence you've supplied.

The only people who tend to have a pre-formed conclusion in my experience are those who reject her theses without bothering to hear what she has to say. Her evidence is taken right from the games - not much to debate there. And yes, as in all things it's up to the audience to decide what they believe after hearing you out which is what makes the outrageous campaign to silence her so interesting: if her arguments are so crap then there's no threat to stamp out. The fact is that there IS something to what she's saying; only the willfully blind and deaf refuse to see it or hear it.

TBH I'm kinda split on this whole thing. I've always argued that when there's a hornets nest to poke then it should be poked. That's how you break down walls. I'm also firmly of the belief that you shouldn't be silent when stuff's going down, you should have the guts to stand up. And for that I respect the people who are in the firing line over this.

However....... I think that at this point if anything putting more fuel on the fire is counter-productive to their aims. At this point the only response they're going to get is cheers from the fans, jeers from their most vocal opponents and a speedy escape from the rest. The "war" might be worthwhile but they really, really need to find a better approach.

Random comparison that has nothing to do with feminism and gaming. I read a rant from someone who was trying to stamp out discrimination against people with physical and mental disabilities. A just cause. However their rant was specifically a whine about how film/acting awards generally go to able bodied people playing disabled characters. Films like Forrest Gump and The Theory of Everything. I mean, there's an argument to be had about the broader issue but I simultaneously don't want to argue against it AND think you're kinda hammering the wrong target.

I feel the same way about a lot of the "misogyny in games" thing. There is an argument to be had more generally and I don't want to be the one on the pro-misogyny part of the debate. But it's hard to agree with the specific examples and you're making it impossible for anyone in the middle of this to take your side. So I'm just going to shut up every time I see this debate come up. I really hate the fact that I am but I don't think any other approach is any better.

Alright, I'm just going to break it all down to make sure I don't skip over anything.

Personal experience - this means nothing. If I claim to have experienced the opposite the discussion would end there. Luckily, we're talking about one person here, so if you want, I can point out instances where facts are being misrepresented to aid her pre-formed conclusions.

Her evidence is taken right from the games - not much to debate there.

This is true. It also means nothing. I could take a short video of bowser drowning in fire after being attacked by Mario and say "Without provocation this poor turtle was attacked and killed in this game". That's a misrepresentation, and it makes the 'evidence' useless. Context is essential, and cherry picking what proves your point only when taken out of content is not valid evidence.

And yes, as in all things it's up to the audience to decide what they believe after hearing you out which is what makes the outrageous campaign to silence her so interesting

Please show me this outrageous campaign to silence her. I agree - trying to silence someone is a stupid move; she has the right to post these videos. If you're talking about the DMCA claims however - those exist because she stole some video content from other YouTubers without permission, which is against the rules and punishable by removal of videos.

The fact is that there IS something to what she's saying; only the willfully blind and deaf refuse to see it or hear it.

Yes, there is. The problem is that people have been saying it for years, and everyone is aware of the issue, among many others that exist in the industry. People have made videos and posts about this stuff long before she came to the scene, the only difference is that they didn't steal, didn't lie, didn't misrepresent, and didn't play the victim to criticism.

Criticism of Anita Sarkesian is not equal to believing sexism and tropes do not exist in the industry and calling out lies on a video about sexism doesn't make you misogynistic.

Not completely agreeing with someone whose claims are based on a problem of misogyny doesn't make you pro-misogyny. That's a fallacy that is unfortunately used to silence criticism, and sadly/evidently works.

@Geonjaha

I'm not going to respond point by point because that seems unnecessary as does your defensiveness.

You're right in a serious debate anecdotal evidence means little, however we're two people in an Internet forum so I don't feel the need to post references and I used "my experience" to avoid someone saying "that's just your opinion man." I have watched a couple of "rebuttle" videos to her work and they are laughable. They try to attack depictions of individual games rather than respond to the entire argument - again a failing to understand basic principles of debate like taking issue with a couple of examples not invalidating a person's basic argument. And her use of game imagery isn't out of context, it directly supports her point. I've had an online poster argue with the use of footage from Hitman killing strippers saying "oh you're not supposed to do that," missing the point (which she makes in video) that the issue isn't whether a player is "supposed" to do that, but the fact that the player CAN and without any meaningful penalty.

There is much focus on the kickstarter with completely unfounded accusations of lying and misrepresentation. She's recently had a presentation where she addresses these false (and totally irrelevant to her theses) claims, do check out the Feminist Frequency Facebook page if you're truly interested (which I doubt).

I never said replying to her videos makes someone sexist and I have yet to see any lies broken down here. Clearly you're not paying sufficient attention to the backlash surrounding her as she's had death threats and the takedown notices were nothing more than harassment (note that NONE of her videos have been taken down by YouTube) which hasn't limited itself to her but has been extended to threats against institutions that dare to grant her a public forum.

I'm all for people debating with her, but the problem is no one seems to actually be able to do so in an intelligent manner.

Actually in the Hitman footage, she kills two strippers who only appear once in the game, and in an area that isn't even necessary to go down. The game actually does punish you for killing them, because they aren't the hit target, you actually lose points for attacking them - you're supposed to sneak around them. Simply because the player CAN kill them doesn't mean anything. The player CAN kill any person, of any profession, and any gender. Unless the argument is simply that women or strippers should be the exception to this rule I don't exactly see what her point is there. If she's trying to say that most players DO end up killing those women, that is again false, as out of a large majority of the play-through's online (Lets Plays) players completely avoid confronting them, because the game is actively discouraging it, just as it does with all civilians.

As for the death threats, I don't think it needs to be said that its terrible that it happens, but a large majority of public figures on YouTube get death threats for their content. Heck, I've gotten death threats online just for disagreeing with people - Imagine how many more you get when you're actually influential in some way. There will always be people like that, willing to threaten people with any opinion on a matter.