Nerds. Nerds EVERYWHERE...

[Opyt]

"The male gaze". WTF?!?

This is nothing new, shoe0nhead lightly touched on the surface of it in her Oppression Olympics video, it's the process by which Pop Feminists say that you objectify women by merely looking at them.

While the origins are probably something along the lines of staring at a woman across a bar until she feels "uncomfortable"; it has, like most other things, been watered down to be an utterly pointless accusation. It can now involve being the "wrong type of person" and merely maintaining eye contact while speaking with her. More hardcore Pop Feminists might refer to it as "starerape". :roll:

In other words, it's a steaming pile of shit and not worth the price the paper an e-book is printed on. :shifty:

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

In other words, it's a steaming pile of shit and not worth the price the paper an e-book is printed on. :shifty:

But wait! An e-book is not pri...ooooooh, you sneaky you!

[Konrad_Cruze]

I'm with you Hunt, but I'm not going to put it past someone being stupid enough to try and boost her career by doing it.

AVfM pointed out that it's a composite sketch of the ideal representative of "Jotun's Law" (Take the bottom subset of "the worst" subset, and apply views to everyone) in regards to the MHRM doohickey. Right down to the referencing of Rodgers and Lepine. Two of the "poster children" for how the Pop Feminists view any and every MRA/MRA Sympathizer. Was it a hoax? Probably. It would certainly be interesting to see if the FBI will identify the culprit, and whether or not "the charges will be dropped" by Sark & McUphisass

I must agree. For all Anita's faults the one thing she is not is stupid. I would not be surprised if it was one of her fans. The critical thing here is her reaction to it. I think she knew this threat isn't credible. She is using the situation to her advantage whilst maintaining plausible deniability.She is churning out the tweets and ensuring that all media know about this threat to boost her own status and income. She is playing the game very well. I doubt she would be stupid enough to allow herself to be muddied by this in any way. She will come through this completely unscathed.We just need to keep chipping away at her.

[Kirbmarc]

Sarkeesian is a fan of Andrea Dworkin. Dworkin was batshit insane, but some of her ideas have wormed their way into the SJW dogma. She was the one who created the "teach men to end rape, don't teach women to protect themselves" meme. She was staunchly anti-porn. She wanted a country just for women, and the right to execute "rapists" extra-judicially.

[rayshul]

...ugh. My husband appears to be anti-Gamergate.

vomit.

divorce plz?

Meh.

I find it hard to hold it against anybody except for the SJWs themselves. They do a bang-up job painting themselves as the victims, garnering media support, and propagating distorted narratives that cast their opposition as whatever-ists who stalk, harass, and threaten (of course, a small percentage do).

The glimmer of hope is that the SJWs continue to invade space after space. That sounds like the opposite of a glimmer of hope, but consider: if what's happening in the A/S and gamer communities is any indication, then most people already inhabiting each space see right through the SJW bullshit. It seems that when onlookers become the SJW-ed, their attitudes quickly change. Perhaps the SJWs will self-destruct.

Funnily enough, I don't believe this is going to stop unless there actually *is* equality between the sexes, and people stop treating women like feeble vaginas that cry all the time.

[Kirbmarc]

I still don't understand how we came to live in a world that now considers liking the opposite sex's attractiveness a bad thing.

Deep down ,the new feminists' message is that all men are rapists. They won't admit it, they'll find every way to deny that they've even thought about it. But the real meaning of every feminist campaign is to imply that all men are very likely to rape women unless the entire culture changes to cater to their ideas.

[Konrad_Cruze]

@assofbayonetta bayonetta's ass is following you

Stroke of pure genius

[feathers]

"The male gaze". WTF?!?

A term that seems to be ripped from the Quran, that marvelous shining example of feminism, and its instructions to women to dress modestly in order not to attract the male gaze, and avert their own gaze when men are present.

[didymos]

No, the "male gaze" is a term based in Lacanian psychoanalysis. It's from a 70s essay by Laura Mulvey. If you strip away all the dubious psychoanalytic BS, there's a useable concept in there. We've all seen the thing in movies where the camera lovingly pans over a woman's body, possibly zooming or pausing on the T and the A. That's the male gaze: stuff in a movie that's there for the straight male viewer. Her main point wasn't that this was necessarily bad, but that it was all you tended to see in terms of visual sexual content in film. IOW, "Dudes get theirs. There should be some smexy for the ladies too". Obviously things have changed a good deal since the 70s, though I'd say there's still somewhat of a "fanservice gap".

Also, the author of the essay has herself said it was a polemic, and that if she were to do it over, she'd take a less black and white approach. Of course, it's taken on a life of it's own, accreting all sorts of extraneous PoMo nonsense and being turned into a litmus test for media, wherein any presence of "the male gaze" at all makes something patriarchally oppressive. Sort of like how the Bechdel test, originally a lighthearted jab at Hollywood in an indie comic, became this thing all media must satisfy (despite occasional lipservice to the contrary).

[Cunt of Personality]

Sarkeesian is a fan of Andrea Dworkin. Dworkin was batshit insane, but some of her ideas have wormed their way into the SJW dogma. She was the one who created the "teach men to end rape, don't teach women to protect themselves" meme. She was staunchly anti-porn. She wanted a country just for women, and the right to execute "rapists" extra-judicially.

In addition to being insane, Dworkin also was also a fraud and hypocrit. True story: She stayed a my partner's house when she was in Belfast in the 70's and more than a few of the then self-identifying radical feminists and "political lesbians" who encountered her were glad to see her leave. She was "Do as I say, not as I do" personified.

[BarnOwl]

This may be part of the long game within the US: for Christians, it's a way to further demonize atheists. For atheists, it's a way to justify infiltration of the "movement" and leadership with SJW tropes.

[Sulman]

No, the "male gaze" is a term based in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Plenty of beefcake in film though, surely?

[Sulman]

I'd like to see Sarkeesian in a hard interview, away from the rehearsed rhetoric.

There is no glimpse of character at all. She just looks like a parrot.

[Hunt]

Kind of a sad day when I agree more with O'Reilly than Stewart:

http://deadline.com/2014/10/bill-oreill ... eo-852756/

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

[Kirbmarc]

Her main point wasn't that this was necessarily bad, but that it was all you tended to see in terms of visual sexual content in film. IOW, "Dudes get theirs. There should be some smexy for the ladies too".

If Sarkeesian's point was something along these lines, I would agree with her. if female geeks (and male gay geeks) want more shirtless hunks with pretty-boy faces in their games, most gamers wouldn't be against it. And if women and gay men complained that they feel excluded when they see that games are mostly marketed to straight males, they'd understand where they're coming from.

But she's not making this argument. She's not even making the Puritan argument that there's too much female skin to be seen. If she did, the gamers would still be against her, and they'd probably mock her, but she wouldn't bother them too much.

What makes gamers angry are unsubtle attempts to prove that people who play and enjoy certain video games are potential rapists. That's a point straight out of Dworkin's books, and most "progressives" would be against it if it was argued for by a priest or a lawyer.

However, since Sarkeesian is a woman and a leftist (at least in theory) all those people who defended gore and horror movies against the moral guardians now are on her side.

Look at Joss Whedon. He made a show that was all about scares and horror, and if Bible thumpers called him a Satanists he'd have laughed and mocked them. He even introduced the first lesbian kiss between a steady lesbian couple to the American youth. He definitely was on the side of artistic freedom when the conservative were attacking it.

But since Anita is a woman and a "Buffy fan", Whedon (who's "guilty" of "objectifying" or "fridging" women himself) is on her side, all the way.

[Konrad_Cruze]

I'd like to see Sarkeesian in a hard interview, away from the rehearsed rhetoric.

There is no glimpse of character at all. She just looks like a parrot.

Wasn't there an interview a while ago where she was asked about not feeding the trolls. I'm trying to find find it. As far as I can remember she started off with her script and was suddenly asked about trolls and you could see in her eyes that she had no idea what to say. I'll see what I can dig up

[AnonymousCowherd]

No, the "male gaze" is a term based in Lacanian psychoanalysis. It's from a 70s essay by Laura Mulvey. If you strip away all the dubious psychoanalytic BS, there's a useable concept in there. We've all seen the thing in movies where the camera lovingly pans over a woman's body, possibly zooming or pausing on the T and the A. That's the male gaze: stuff in a movie that's there for the straight male viewer. Her main point wasn't that this was necessarily bad, but that it was all you tended to see in terms of visual sexual content in film. IOW, "Dudes get theirs. There should be some smexy for the ladies too". Obviously things have changed a good deal since the 70s, though I'd say there's still somewhat of a "fanservice gap".

Also, the author of the essay has herself said it was a polemic, and that if she were to do it over, she'd take a less black and white approach. Of course, it's taken on a life of it's own, accreting all sorts of extraneous PoMo nonsense and being turned into a litmus test for media, wherein any presence of "the male gaze" at all makes something patriarchally oppressive. Sort of like how the Bechdel test, originally a lighthearted jab at Hollywood in an indie comic, became this thing all media must satisfy (despite occasional lipservice to the contrary).

He doesn't deserve it, but to be fair to Lacan, the "gaze" bit is certainly his, but the "male" bit, not so much. His discussions of "the gaze" have more to do with his ideas about the operation of consciousness (vs unconscious) thought, how that is involved in the creation of identity (or the sense of self), and the technical (for psychoanalysts) issues to do with looking at (or generally interacting with) analysands. That he dressed this up in POMO gibberish doesn't help, and it is rarely worth digging through it to find out what the hell he was on about.

But I'm sure he'd think that the digging was the point, whatever the outcome.

[Konrad_Cruze]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

It doesn't make your point of view any less valid, nor is it countered in any way by the actions of SJWs

[Cliché Guevara]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

Slate had an article last year complaining about the "abuse" of the concept. As if no one could have seen that coming.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

It doesn't make your point of view any less valid, nor is it countered in any way by the actions of SJWs

I never said it didn't. SJWs said it.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

I know what you mean, but is "white" the best way to characterise this privilege? Given all the ways you could slice up the privilege cake, maybe class, or income group, or school attended, or some mix, or whatever, may be a better predictor of "privilege" than skin colour. Of course these things can be inter-related, which is all the more reason not to call it something based on one attribute alone.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Class is probably the most relevant part of the argument.

[Konrad_Cruze]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

It doesn't make your point of view any less valid, nor is it countered in any way by the actions of SJWs

I never said it didn't. SJWs said it.

I know, I know. Relax.

[AnonymousCowherd]

Class is probably the most relevant part of the argument.

I'd guess you are right about that. But the US seems to have a blind spot about talking about class (coz Commies say that?) and so does Oz, because we like to pretend we live in a classless society. Even so, it's a pretty broad descriptor, and there's probably something better. Unfortunately, it's likely to be some composite, abstract thing that just won't catch on because no-one understands it.

On the other hand, if we just clearly defined what we mean by "privilege", the best way to describe it may become perfectly clear. Not holding my breath for that though.

[Hunt]

Class is probably the most relevant part of the argument.

Class is always the most relevant part, even in supposedly "classless" societies. Even where class doesn't nominally exist, wealth is always the primary classifier of society. O'Reilly mentions this briefly in the edited version. He grew up in Levitttown. For those unfamiliar, Levittown was a post WWII mass housing project for white people of very average means. However, it was racially segregated. Initially, O'Reilly attempts to disqualify the entire idea of 'white privilege' by citing the fact that Asian Americans are actually statistically more prosperous than whites.

Privilege is a valid collective concept, but breaks down almost immediately at the individual level, as was also hinted at in the interview. It's hard to draw any other conclusion, so even Stewart was stammering at that point.

"Privileged while male," or any other racial or gender classification, devoid of any other context, is simple bigotry.

[Hunt]

I actually mean that blacks were not allowed housing there at all, not segregated housing.

[didymos]

No, the "male gaze" is a term based in Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Plenty of beefcake in film though, surely?

That wasn't quite so common back when the original essay was written. Not that I rate it the essay that highly either. It's steeped in psychoanalytic theory, which has never been shown to have much validity, and often comes off as disingenuous moralizing disguised as "science".

[Karmakin]

...ugh. My husband appears to be anti-Gamergate.

vomit.

divorce plz?

Meh.

I find it hard to hold it against anybody except for the SJWs themselves. They do a bang-up job painting themselves as the victims, garnering media support, and propagating distorted narratives that cast their opposition as whatever-ists who stalk, harass, and threaten (of course, a small percentage do).

The glimmer of hope is that the SJWs continue to invade space after space. That sounds like the opposite of a glimmer of hope, but consider: if what's happening in the A/S and gamer communities is any indication, then most people already inhabiting each space see right through the SJW bullshit. It seems that when onlookers become the SJW-ed, their attitudes quickly change. Perhaps the SJWs will self-destruct.

Funnily enough, I don't believe this is going to stop unless there actually *is* equality between the sexes, and people stop treating women like feeble vaginas that cry all the time.

What was it that Sarkeesian said...In the game of patriarchy women are the ball?

Truth is, she probably is right on that. What she missed, of course is that she was as guilty as anybody (and let's be honest, more so) in doing that. Her entire video series is about turning women into the ball to be shot into the basket, into the flag to be captured.

Into the damsel to be rescued.

This whole #GamerGate thing. It's not about gender at all. Even the ZQ thing that set it off. Do you think people would have had a different response if there was a gender flip? Hell no. Actually, I suspect that there would have been much more harsh criticism coming out. But they WANT to make it about gender, about women. That's the goal. It's a very POWERFUL weapon they have, because of the innate feeling that most of us have that protecting women==good.

What pushed me away from the SJW thing was finding out that not all women wanted that protection in the same way. And that protection was often more harmful than it was worth. And Anti-GGers simply have no way to process that. The idea that there are a LOT of women who think that protection is insulting and dehumanizing is simply lost on them.

The whole thing, JUST THE SAME as the bullshit in the A/S sphere, is about in-group/out-group bias and people seeking to maximize and weaponize those divides for their own benefit. (I think the people who think it's about established sites pushing out Twitch streamers and YouTubers are probably not too far off the mark) Not everybody is actively guilty of this. But some people are. And if the thing is going to end, AntiGGers are going to have to come to grips with the notion that the bullying of those they disagree with is what started the whole mess (With the whole "Gamers are Dead" thing) and that they're going to have to take steps to change that.

The big problem is that for most people, they think that in-group privilege is their right. And nothing is going to take that away from them.

[Sulman]

Kind of a sad day when I agree more with O'Reilly than Stewart:

http://deadline.com/2014/10/bill-oreill ... eo-852756/

This is what's surprised me about #gamergate. Liberal and very anti-establishment people have found the most unlikely bedfellows in thought.

If you'd have told me a Breitbart journalist had become a mouthpiece for disenfranchised and pilloried left wing gamers, I'd have laughed at you. Yet, here we are.

It's a measure of how far media has disappeared up its own arsehole. Jon Stewart has been like this for a while, though.

As a transplanted Brit, I find John Oliver's ever-so-humble blokey horseshit more than a little reminiscent of Ben Elton, but worst of all the whole thing is just so adolescent. It reminds me of a sixth form common room at school.

[Pitchguest]

Ironic that Anita should go after Bayonetta 2, when infamously her review of the original Bayonetta was so terrible that she removed it from her videos. And why? Because it was painfully obvious that she hadn't played the game, hadn't done any research and knew fuck all about the game, but still made a video misrepresenting it.

This when she still allowed comments on her videos because she'd just started Feminist Frequency.

(Oh, right. She still does that. Just now she has followers clinging to her every word. Shameless. Absolutely bloody shameless.)

[TedDahlberg]

Since Giant Bomb, the last gaming site I actually followed, now seemingly has jumped feet first in as anti-Gamer Gate via Patrick Klepek, I'm done. I'm out. Cancelled my subscription to the site, and from now on I'll be checking out the Playstation blog and the Xbox equivalent for new releases, and that'll have to be it.

For my fix of entertaining video game videos, I'll stick with Game Center CX. Japanese TV show of a guy who plays old video games, usually badly. If that's not bulletproof from bullshit politics, I'm getting off this planet.

[youtube]ocmkuhEiOd0[youtube]

In the event you have the need for googled /metacritic'd content/reviews... nichegamer (pro gg), escapist (neutral) come to mind as click-worthy.

I don't know gamespot's take, so I assume they dodged taking sides. I click there every once in awhile.

Thanks, will have to check out nichegamer, that one's new to me. As for Gamespot, I don't think they've taken any official position, but they do have people with SJW tendencies working there. It's a shame really, there are lots of great people working both there and at Giant Bomb (they're both owned by NBC and work in the same building).

[BlueShiftRhino]

"The male gaze". WTF?!?

But remember: sexual dimorphification of the frontal eye fields and other precentral gyrus areas is a social construct, shitlord.

[BlueShiftRhino]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

Sure, overall, on average, especially in the absence of a (men-only military) draft, white males have it easier in Western countries. The question is whether giving this a label and then over-applying said label to everything including the number of urinals at a football stadium is helping or hurting to solve the original problem.

[BlueShiftRhino]

Also, since I'm sure that he reads this blog: fuck you, Jon Stewart, for taking yourself way too seriously and ruining your own show.

[Karmakin]

Ironic that Anita should go after Bayonetta 2, when infamously her review of the original Bayonetta was so terrible that she removed it from her videos. And why? Because it was painfully obvious that she hadn't played the game, hadn't done any research and knew fuck all about the game, but still made a video misrepresenting it.

This when she still allowed comments on her videos because she'd just started Feminist Frequency.

(Oh, right. She still does that. Just now she has followers clinging to her every word. Shameless. Absolutely bloody shameless.)

To be fair, the story of Bayonetta was so backloaded (it starts pretty slow, and then gets extremely busy near the end) that I doubt she'd ever have a chance of seeing it, even on easy mode as the game really isn't easy. From what I've played of the demo of B2, it feels quite a bit easier, I think so maybe it won't be that bad?

Oh who am I kidding. Fake feminists are always going to have an axe to grind. And I mean it when I say fake. When they talk about objectification they have no fucking clue what they're talking about. Sarkeesian tries to quote Martha Nussbaum about objectification, but her video series doesn't understand the first thing about her essay. The main point of her essay is that "Context Matters", more more accurately, individual context matters. AS's message that this context DOESN'T matter flies in the face of that.

[piginthecity]

With the masterful and effortless poaching of someone else's group of harrassers by a more accomplished and higher status victim, one person who's definitely innocent of making the Sarkeesian threat is poor old Zoe Quinn (remember her?).

[didymos]

Ironic that Anita should go after Bayonetta 2, when infamously her review of the original Bayonetta was so terrible that she removed it from her videos. And why? Because it was painfully obvious that she hadn't played the game, hadn't done any research and knew fuck all about the game, but still made a video misrepresenting it.

This when she still allowed comments on her videos because she'd just started Feminist Frequency.

(Oh, right. She still does that. Just now she has followers clinging to her every word. Shameless. Absolutely bloody shameless.)

Unfortunately for Anita, the Internet does not forget:

[youtube]XbihPTgAql4[/youtube]

The one thing that does annoy me is when people try to argue on her and McIntosh's terms: "Oh, but she owns her sexuality and blah, blah, blah." I mean, that's true, but it's implicitly conceding that it must be defended, and it just opens you up to the "Well, she's deliberately written that way, so still a patriarchal fantasy object and blah, blah, blah." The proper response is "Yep. She's definitely sexualised. That was a deliberate aesthetic choice by the creators of the game. Why is this wrong exactly?" Because it's fundamentally about moralizing at people for liking the wrong things. They try to dress it up as just being aware of the effects of media and whatnot, but it's so obvious that the real position is that Things Like This Should Not Exist. :naughty:

[didymos]

To be fair, the story of Bayonetta was so backloaded (it starts pretty slow, and then gets extremely busy near the end) that I doubt she'd ever have a chance of seeing it, even on easy mode as the game really isn't easy. From what I've played of the demo of B2, it feels quite a bit easier, I think so maybe it won't be that bad?

I know you said "Who am I kidding?" but there's still the fact that:

a. There was a very easy mode where the game almost literally played itself by giving you a special item that automatically performed bitchin' combos and only required you to mash a single button.
b. She could always get someone to play it for her and either watch them do it or just play the unlocked cutscenes later
c. Wikipedia exists and includes plot summaries.
c. TVTropes also exists and is what she ripped her whole format from.

[BlueShiftRhino]

Snarky: "...objectifying women's bodies..."

Let it sink in.

[Old_ones]

This may be part of the long game within the US: for Christians, it's a way to further demonize atheists. For atheists, it's a way to justify infiltration of the "movement" and leadership with SJW tropes.

Napoleon said it best, never stop your enemy when [she] is making a mistake. Atheists used to be fierce critics of Christianity, but now that half the atheist cavalry has decided to flank the infantry the ranks are disordered, and the Christians are no longer under fire.

I imagine a lot of Christians find SJWs even more insane and repugnant than we do, but they are probably delighted with the targets these nutballs have chosen.

[didymos]

Of course, like she admitted in the video, she didn't actually give a shit about the game itself. She clearly loathed the whole concept, but what really bothered her was the Japanese ad campaign that she apparently believes directly led to groping of women on the subway (as if that phenomenon, which is real, could be so simplistically explained). Also, yet another example of privileged white person presuming to instruct another culture on How To Behave In A Civilised Fashion, which she's not supposed to be in favor of. Anita really needs to work on her intersectionality.

[John D]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

I know what you mean, but is "white" the best way to characterise this privilege? Given all the ways you could slice up the privilege cake, maybe class, or income group, or school attended, or some mix, or whatever, may be a better predictor of "privilege" than skin colour. Of course these things can be inter-related, which is all the more reason not to call it something based on one attribute alone.

Part of the problem I have is that the white privilege discussion is very one sided and has no nuance. From my view, white men in America do have a few assumptions tossed at them. Some of these assumptions are helpful. Some... not so much.

Along with the helpful stuff is a pile of tough stuff. Society judges white men based only of their success. White men are cut very little slack, and are called losers if they don't have a successful career. White men in their 40s and 50s commit suicide at a higher rate then other groups.

But, the most subtle part of this discussion is how family and cultural factors are tied to skin color. It is very hard to separate the two things. In general, most blacks in America have a slave history. I think this tragic history has broken the thread of the strong family. Blacks have a unique set of cultural behaviors as they are making their way in a white dominated world. Most blacks and whites have clearly different sets of family and cultural norms. So when the races judge each other they are not making claims that the skin color is a factor. Almost no one thinks people are different because their skin color is different. They are noticing clearly different cultural norms that are attached to the persons racial history.

So, this is where the so called "conversation" has to start. It has to start with the idea that blacks and whites have a different culture. This shows up in many ways. Policing is a good place to start. I think that, in general, whites have agreed to being policed and blacks have not. Most whites think that, while cops make lots of mistakes, they are an overall benefit. Whites think cops are necessary and can even be kind and helpful in some cases. Blacks, in general, think cops are a dimension of their oppressors. They have not agreed to be policed. American black culture is, for the most part, anti-police.

I think America needs to figure out how to get blacks to buy into the idea that, overall, cops are needed and often beneficial. Changing things like "stop and frisk" will not really help much. The black culture wants "stop and frisk" to end because blacks think this will provide more protection for blacks. What it really does is reinforce the idea that blacks have not agreed to be policed.

But, much of the problem is not centered around the police. Much of black culture has not even agree to be governed. The culture, because it started with slavery, just hasn't bought into the "American Dream." This is very different from Hispanics or other minorities. Fundamentally, Hispanics want to come here. They know what the system is and the accept it. They accept the idea that they will be governed.

Ultimately, I see little solution to this cultural difference between black Americans and all other groups. Blacks have been so victimized that they have developed a culture unable to accept American governance. Maybe we just need a lot more time.

Now, I expect to get piled on and called a racist by some of youall. Whatever. I believe that the driving force that perpetuates racial tension in America is black culture. American black culture has a fundamental element that has rejected the idea that most other groups accept; that hard work, education, and effort can deliver the "American Dream."

[Richard Dworkins]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

Sure but mostly it applies in countries that are predominantly made up of white people, there are exceptions. However "White privilege" means little more than "majority benefit" in these places. Sure minorities might end up a bit worse off but I'd ass that perhaps not worse off than their economic peers. So white privilege only really benefits a specific group of whites, economically.

This is where I think the problem is. The SJW's have seen the idea of economic privilege in white countries lies with a minority and decided that minority is bad/evil/shitlords etc and have decided to rail against white people as a whole, when for the main they belong to that economic class and race and have benefited greatly from that.

White privilege may well exist but it is not half as excessive as white guilt thinks it is and both seem to be bourgeois (apologies but it's a suitable word even free of it's Marxist usage) luxuries.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Let's be fair: there is white privilege. Not always, especially not on an individual scale, but there is.

I deny the existence of "Privilege" as defined by the SJWs.

That the above statement is considered by SJWs to be proof of the existence of Privilege, tells you all you need to know about the concept.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

but now that half the atheist cavalry has decided to flank the infantry the ranks are disordered

Where else would you deploy the cavalry?

[katamari Damassi]

I'd like to see Sarkeesian in a hard interview, away from the rehearsed rhetoric.

There is no glimpse of character at all. She just looks like a parrot.

That was Suet Park's downfall . When interviewed on CNN all she could do is spout feminist internet memes at the interviewer. She can off looking like an idiot. Notice we haven't heard much from her except whining about her personal life.

Sadly I think Sarkeesian is a bit smarter than Park. Not smart enough to get through a hardball interview, but smart enough to avoid one. She'd probably cite security reasons or some such. She's in this more for the money and won't be easily seduced with attention.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I think this tragic history has broken the thread of the strong family. Blacks have a unique set of cultural behaviors as they are making their way in a white dominated world.... Almost no one thinks people are different because their skin color is different. They are noticing clearly different cultural norms that are attached to the persons racial history.

True, in that the cultural behaviors are coincident to the race. Yet I'm not persuaded by, and frankly a bit tired of, the meme that modern black urban subculture is a slave culture. The early 20th century mass migrations to the cities was a major upheaval with a far greater impact. You had ignorant peasants moving to big modern cities, something that's happened many times in many places, only the difference in skin color prevented the blacks from gradually assimilating.

I think America needs to figure out how to get blacks to buy into the idea that, overall, cops are needed and often beneficial.

Blacks need to figure out how to accept the rule of law. The onus is on them. They also need to address a culture that produces criminals at 8x the rate of whites and 15x asians. Most of that is due to socio-economic conditions, but also to a subculture that, as you note, defies the law and promotes criminality. Crying, 'the slavery made me do it' is wearing thin fast.

Ultimately, I see little solution to this cultural difference between black Americans and all other groups. Blacks have been so victimized that they have developed a culture unable to accept American governance. Maybe we just need a lot more time.

It certainly won't be solved via the SJW strategy, which is to: 1) blame it all on The New Jim Crow, instead of poverty; 2) praise and coddle a subculture that boasts 'I fought the law and the law won', for example, by encouraging blacks to resist arrest.

Now, I expect to get piled on and called a racist by some of youall. Whatever. I believe that the driving force that perpetuates racial tension in America is black culture. American black culture has a fundamental element that has rejected the idea that most other groups accept; that hard work, education, and effort can deliver the "American Dream."

Most times, when someone tries to say, 'it's not the race; it's the culture', they get called a racist. :doh: Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps when trapped in a dysfunctional environment is never an easy prospect (and getting harder for everyone in the moribund US economy.) But SJWs treating urban blacks as helpless victims, and encouraging them to passively play that role, is a recipe for failure.

[TheMudbrooker]

but now that half the atheist cavalry has decided to flank the infantry the ranks are disordered

Where else would you deploy the cavalry?

The nearest glue factory?

[Suet Cardigan]

Ironic that Anita should go after Bayonetta 2, when infamously her review of the original Bayonetta was so terrible that she removed it from her videos. And why? Because it was painfully obvious that she hadn't played the game, hadn't done any research and knew fuck all about the game, but still made a video misrepresenting it.

This when she still allowed comments on her videos because she'd just started Feminist Frequency.

(Oh, right. She still does that. Just now she has followers clinging to her every word. Shameless. Absolutely bloody shameless.)

Unfortunately for Anita, the Internet does not forget:

[youtube]XbihPTgAql4[/youtube]

The one thing that does annoy me is when people try to argue on her and McIntosh's terms: "Oh, but she owns her sexuality and blah, blah, blah." I mean, that's true, but it's implicitly conceding that it must be defended, and it just opens you up to the "Well, she's deliberately written that way, so still a patriarchal fantasy object and blah, blah, blah." The proper response is "Yep. She's definitely sexualised. That was a deliberate aesthetic choice by the creators of the game. Why is this wrong exactly?" Because it's fundamentally about moralizing at people for liking the wrong things. They try to dress it up as just being aware of the effects of media and whatnot, but it's so obvious that the real position is that Things Like This Should Not Exist. :naughty:

SJWs use of the phrase "sexualize" in a negative way is very telling - it not only implies that sexual expression is innately wrong (when men do it, anyway), but also that women are not sexual beings unless men impose sexuality on them.
Sarky actually used the phrase "naughty bits" in the video. Scratch an SJW, find a neo-Victorian puritan underneath.

[Scented Nectar]

You know what's fucking pathetic? The FTB blogger's lack of comments on 4 recent articles by Taslima (No Country For Women blog at ftb). http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/

I may not often agree with Taslima, but these are all cases of religions fucking women over. Legit issues, not first world bullshit. And barely a supportive peep to be found from the fucking feminists bloggers over there. After all, one must not criticize theocratic misogyny (religion is pretty much the only places it still exists in the modern world), because one must never criticize a non-white person for anything, no matter how much it has nothing to do with their physical features.

"Sexual Jihad"
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... ual-jihad/

"An Indian girl was forced to marry a dog" due to religious superstition
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... rry-a-dog/

"The goddess girl was burried alive" and a shrine erected at the site
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... ied-alive/

"Serious death threats" Not to do with being female, but still much more credible threats than the Sarkeesian and skepchickie style feigning fear over empty, perhaps orchestrated, threats. The islamicists often carry these types of threats though, if they get the chance to.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... h-threats/

[Matt Cavanaugh]

This one's for Barnowl:

rescue_owl.jpg

(72.08 KiB) Downloaded 192 times

[Matt Cavanaugh]

You know what's fucking pathetic? The FTB blogger's lack of comments on 4 recent articles by Taslima (No Country For Women blog at ftb). http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/

I may not often agree with Taslima, but these are all cases of religions fucking women over. Legit issues, not first world bullshit. And barely a supportive peep to be found from the fucking feminists bloggers over there. After all, one must not criticize theocratic misogyny (religion is pretty much the only places it still exists in the modern world), because one must never criticize a non-white person for anything, no matter how much it has nothing to do with their physical features.

"Sexual Jihad"
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... ual-jihad/

"An Indian girl was forced to marry a dog" due to religious superstition
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... rry-a-dog/

"The goddess girl was burried alive" and a shrine erected at the site
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... ied-alive/

"Serious death threats" Not to do with being female, but still much more credible threats than the Sarkeesian and skepchickie style feigning fear over empty, perhaps orchestrated, threats. The islamicists often carry these types of threats though, if they get the chance to.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/201 ... h-threats/

How dare you "dear muslima'-ize!

Such headlines induce mass catatonia among Western feminists. To even acknowledge them would be to completely undermine their cry-baby whining over ... pretty much nothing.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Have fun:

http://sjwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Yes, they have their own wiki now.

:bjarte:

[another lurker]

fuck you into the ground Matt, that is too cute and now I am suffering brain hemorrhage

[Old_ones]

but now that half the atheist cavalry has decided to flank the infantry the ranks are disordered

Where else would you deploy the cavalry?

Well, I'm not a general, but I would think that the enemy ranks make a better target than your own...

[Pitchguest]

Because it's a labour of love and because it's a hobby I enjoy (and because I don't like the representation it's gotten in the media), I've been hovering over the #gamergate hashtag for quite a while just looking for any reason or justification why Anita Sarkeesian and now the mainstream would berate the entire demographic and I must have read over a hundred tweets, probably more, and I've found ... absolutely nothing.

No threats, no harassment, no doxxing. Nothing. A big pile of nothing.

What I did find, however, was people anti-gamergate going on places like 8chan, pretending to be proponents of gamergate making various death threats and then the same users reporting their own death threats to the FBI. I found people who supposedly endorse harassment and threats expose the person responsible, I found people who supposedly enjoy bullying challenge people who've encouraged bullying to a 3-round boxing match and would donate $10,000 to an anti-bullying charity should they accept. I found that people that oppose #gamergate are not interested in mutual conversation. Every single "discussion" I've seen with people for or against has ended with the person against either blanket blaming the other and then blocking them, or just ignoring them outright. It's amazing to me that the only people who actually want a conversation, the only people who've gone lengths to invite people on the other side, are the ones apparently anathema to the very concept of civility.

Seriously. I can look on YouTube and find a plethora of streams started by people pro-gamergate who talk to people on the other side. Good luck finding that from the opposition. There was that one stream from HuffPo. Good job. *golfclap*

[James Caruthers]

No, the "male gaze" is a term based in Lacanian psychoanalysis. It's from a 70s essay by Laura Mulvey. If you strip away all the dubious psychoanalytic BS, there's a useable concept in there. We've all seen the thing in movies where the camera lovingly pans over a woman's body, possibly zooming or pausing on the T and the A. That's the male gaze: stuff in a movie that's there for the straight male viewer. Her main point wasn't that this was necessarily bad, but that it was all you tended to see in terms of visual sexual content in film. IOW, "Dudes get theirs. There should be some smexy for the ladies too". Obviously things have changed a good deal since the 70s, though I'd say there's still somewhat of a "fanservice gap".

Also, the author of the essay has herself said it was a polemic, and that if she were to do it over, she'd take a less black and white approach. Of course, it's taken on a life of it's own, accreting all sorts of extraneous PoMo nonsense and being turned into a litmus test for media, wherein any presence of "the male gaze" at all makes something patriarchally oppressive. Sort of like how the Bechdel test, originally a lighthearted jab at Hollywood in an indie comic, became this thing all media must satisfy (despite occasional lipservice to the contrary).

There's also the question (so frequently ignored by our glorious feminist culture critics) of biological difference. Men tend to be very visual. Well, what about women's sexuality? Perhaps we should go to the films purchased almost exclusively by women (and the poor saps they subject them to.)

There would certainly be no objection to some rom-com camera panning lovingly over a large male bulge. How often does this happen? :lol:

Lesbians tend to have less sex than average. Homosexual male couples tend to have more. Gee, I wonder if biology could have anything to do with this?

Nah, must be culture. Culture culture culture, everything is always the fault of that evil culture! DAMMIT CULTURE, WHEN WILL YOU LET WOMEN BE AS VISUAL AND SEX-OBSESSED AS TEH MENZ?!?!?

I'm not saying every woman or every man is like that, but I think Enough Men and Enough Women Are Like That.

Is culture this monstrous, Lovecraftian force that shapes our needs and desires, or is culture an organic outgrowth of our interpersonal relationships and attempts to fulfill biological imperatives?

No feminist could support the second option in part or whole without abandoning much of the SJW pop culture criticism they love to spout.

Men and women don't even write smut the same way, btw. There's plenty of smut out there for women if you're of a mind to go look. Now, the internet is in many ways an anarchist paradise, particularly when it comes to smut. Restricting ourselves simply to written smut (books,) there is an avalanche of smut written by women, and some written by men. Might a comparison of how these stories differ reveal biological differences between how horny men and horny women want to enjoy sex?

Naaahhhhhh, must be that damn culture again! :cdc:

I've noticed a pattern with feminist culture critics of the past, which is that they say something which is mostly true of the '50s and '60s. Then their words become iconic and are taken further into the extremes. Meanwhile in reality, the problem is largely corrected IF it was a problem. So the problem gets better, but the polemic becomes more and more strident. Eventually, it's 2014, every real cultural problem the feminists of the '60s were bitching about is pretty well fixed (even if it backfired on them,) but the feminists of 2014 still bitch and moan like they're living in 1960, apparently oblivious of any differences between the two societies. :roll:

Inevitably, the original feminist culture critic comes to lament their role in the whole travesty, and wish they could have imparted their message with a bit more subtlety.

Case in point: Bechdel test.

It was just a fun little criticism, used as a joke because it's true. I don't think the author ever intended ALL MOVIES should be subjected to this standard. What about a tightly-plotted crime thriller? Why should women talk about their feelz unrelated to the story in this type of movie? Furthermore, there are now SCADS of films were women do nothing but talk about their feelings, unrelated in most cases to a man. I wonder how she feels about feminist utopias like Sweden talking about adopting a Bechdel system for rating their movies.

IT WAS A JOKE, DAMMIT!!!! :lol:

[James Caruthers]

Because it's a labour of love and because it's a hobby I enjoy (and because I don't like the representation it's gotten in the media), I've been hovering over the #gamergate hashtag for quite a while just looking for any reason or justification why Anita Sarkeesian and now the mainstream would berate the entire demographic and I must have read over a hundred tweets, probably more, and I've found ... absolutely nothing.

No threats, no harassment, no doxxing. Nothing. A big pile of nothing.

What I did find, however, was people anti-gamergate going on places like 8chan, pretending to be proponents of gamergate making various death threats and then the same users reporting their own death threats to the FBI. I found people who supposedly endorse harassment and threats expose the person responsible, I found people who supposedly enjoy bullying challenge people who've encouraged bullying to a 3-round boxing match and would donate $10,000 to an anti-bullying charity should they accept. I found that people that oppose #gamergate are not interested in mutual conversation. Every single "discussion" I've seen with people for or against has ended with the person against either blanket blaming the other and then blocking them, or just ignoring them outright. It's amazing to me that the only people who actually want a conversation, the only people who've gone lengths to invite people on the other side, are the ones apparently anathema to the very concept of civility.

Seriously. I can look on YouTube and find a plethora of streams started by people pro-gamergate who talk to people on the other side. Good luck finding that from the opposition. There was that one stream from HuffPo. Good job. *golfclap*

I made this point earlier.

Shills are all over on the chans trying to get users to post threats for a nice, juicy screencap, but inevitably the only people posting vile shit are the shills themselves, who are then called out.

BTW 8chan has thread IDs, so it's super easy to prove when a shill is posting their own threats.

But you know what? If a shill takes those screencaps to MSNBC, you can bet they won't know what the fuck a user ID is or bother to check.

[James Caruthers]

Kind of a sad day when I agree more with O'Reilly than Stewart:

http://deadline.com/2014/10/bill-oreill ... eo-852756/

This is what's surprised me about #gamergate. Liberal and very anti-establishment people have found the most unlikely bedfellows in thought.

If you'd have told me a Breitbart journalist had become a mouthpiece for disenfranchised and pilloried left wing gamers, I'd have laughed at you. Yet, here we are.

It's a measure of how far media has disappeared up its own arsehole. Jon Stewart has been like this for a while, though.

As a transplanted Brit, I find John Oliver's ever-so-humble blokey horseshit more than a little reminiscent of Ben Elton, but worst of all the whole thing is just so adolescent. It reminds me of a sixth form common room at school.

Reasonable left and right-wingers can meet on issues like this.

If we couldn't, we'd truly be ideologues.

I don't even think gamergate, the Schism or SJW in general are about politics. It's about reasonable people with life experience that don't match the SJW narrative, versus NPD/BPD crazy pills popping, feminist class-taking academic SJW wombyn's studies majors.

And I guess if I were to frame this politically, it's about libertarian (left, right or none of the above) versus authoritarian.

The SJW is inherently authoritarian and proscriptive. I'm not a free market whore, but I agree with the libertarians that the free market has done a much better job correcting for "gender inequality" than these authoritarian assholes could ever do with blanket mandates and quotas. If there is a market for feminist video games, game developers will sell those games to the feminists.

Fundamentally of course, one only has to examine the behavior of SJWs like Quinn and Sarkeesian to realize they're completely hypocritical and won't even play by the rules they make up. So obviously any attempt to end what they perceive as sexism is doomed to fail from the start because THEY will sabotage these efforts even if nobody else does, simply by their own patriarchal, gender-normative behavior.

:cdc: