Gender / Sex Politics in the Real World

[Sissyl]

Ah, finally, someone with data. What is the top ten list?

[Caineach]

thejeff wrote:

Caineach wrote:

mechaPoet wrote:

Btw, sorry if it felt like I baited you so I could make my response, but I felt that y'all's dislike for the term was due to a misunderstanding of its definition and use (determined by asking you to explain why you disliked it).

Again, I'll be the first to admit that bandying these terms about willy-nilly can be less than useful. But I don't think that a misuse of the term (and here I'm wary of drifting into the dreaded realm of prescriptive linguistics) as an ill-conceived "catch-phrase" or "buzzword" (if indeed such a thing happens) should be taken as the first and foremost understanding of it. I would also encourage that anyone who is not part of a given oppressed group have a little leeway with how that oppressed group describes their experiences. It's more important to try and understand where someone is coming from than to dictate how they should express themselves.

I think you misunderstand me. I have no problem with the definition. I have a problem with its use. It gets used to describe behavior as being aggressive that is in no way such. It gets used to describe every possible behavior someone can take that isn't strictly towing the feminist line, and even sometimes then. If a guy shows any sign of interest in someone, I've seen it somehow labeled a microaggression. The term is being used as a sledgehammer to say any non-puritanical male thoughts are somehow oppressive, regardless of how he acts on them.

Forgive me, but I feel sex shaming is a bad thing. The US is too puritanical society as it is.

Of course sex shaming is overwhelmingly directed at women, but we must fight any hint of it targeting men. Even when it's not actually sex, but harassment.

Are you claiming the concept is inherently invalid and should be dropped entirely? Or just that "microaggression" is applied overly broadly - to any expression of interest, as you said?

I think some groups are applying it properly, but that there is a significant, vocal group that screams that any possible thing a man can do is bad. I think some of the popular feminists right now, like Anita Sarkeesian, skirt the line.

[Krensky]

mechaPoet wrote:

I said I never played it, but to claim that I don't know anything about it is a bit presumptuous.

But anyway, if you want to come back when you're more interested in "actually examining literary works" instead of just condescendingly...

Why is it whenever someone disagrees with you it's condescendingly dismissing you?

I mean if someone said "I never read Catcher in the Rye but this is what it's about..." would you give any credence to that opinion? Especially when their opinion is clearly not related to the actual content of the book?

Just because I say you're wrong doesn't make me condescending or dismissive. Heck, it doesn't even necessarily make you wrong.

However, in this case, you are. Your description of the game has absolutely no relationship with the plot of the game play of Watch Dogs. You could have criticised the trend of giving the player 'agency' by letting him choose between being a scumbag 'anti-hero' and and hero and how that wishy washy gameplay storytelling interacts with what your choice of actions at the sex slave auction the protagonist unknowingly infiltrates. Or you could have discussed how the protagonists grief over his wife and daughter and PTSD winds up pulling him and those who care about him into mortal danger and he's forced to completely break ties with what's left of his family and send them into hiding because he's stirred up a hornet's nest of biblical proportions and the impact of that on him coming to terms with who he is and who he wants to be.

Instead you just repeated things you heard elsewhere that have nothing to a do with the actual plot of game play. The lack of accuracy in what you said compared to what happens in the game and how it plays demonstrates you don't really know anything about the game. Just like if I said The Heart of Darkness was a bodice ripper romance.

[Krensky]

Mackenzie Kavanaugh wrote:

If you're going to say, 'no game sells as well as ______', please at least list a game in the top 10 most sold. Madden isn't even on that list, and the best Call of Duty has ever placed is #14.

Bzzzt.

Thank you for playing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/19/the-top-ten-best-selling-vi deo-games-of-2014/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-01-16-grand-theft-auto-v-best-se lling-game-of-2013-npd
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/jan/11/us-top-10-games -2012

[mechaPoet]

@ Krensky: Well, what was condescending and dismissive about it was you literally typing out "* Sigh," and then telling me "Basically everything you said about the game is completely wrong. Laughably so," without providing any more information. Like, your last post provides a wealth of information! You could have started with actual information! And I'm glad you've provided some! Given that you were responding to my critiques of female objectification and denial of their agency: doesn't that seem to hold true for most of what you've described here? Don't these bodies of women, whether as victims of human trafficking or dead bodies to fuel the protag's grief, act as objects without their own agency in order to bolster the narrative of the male protag?

[Brox RedGloves]

mechaPoet wrote:

Question:

So, I think we can all agree that sexism exists, yeah?

Yes Virginia, there is sexism

mechaPoet wrote:

And at least some of us can agree that it's rooted in misogyny (so even when men are oppressed by sexism, it's because of a sexist valuing of masculinity and devaluing of femininity).

Nice try.

What you're saying here is that when a man hates women, he's wrong, and sexist; but when a woman hates men, it's really the man's fault anyway, so he's still wrong. Grow up. Take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

[Krensky]

mechaPoet wrote:

@ Krensky: Well, what was condescending and dismissive about it was you literally typing out "* Sigh," and then telling me "Basically everything you said about the game is completely wrong. Laughably so," without providing any more information. Like, your last post provides a wealth of information! You could have started with actual information! And I'm glad you've provided some! Given that you were responding to my critiques of female objectification and denial of their agency: doesn't that seem to hold true for most of what you've described here? Don't these bodies of women, whether as victims of human trafficking or dead bodies to fuel the protag's grief, act as objects without their own agency in order to bolster the narrative of the male protag?

You're the one who said you didn't play it and then repeated criticisms made up by other people. Why should I provide more than "Um, obviously you never played it, because that's all wrong."?

As for objectification, no more or less so than the bodies of the men you encounter or create along the way.

[thejeff]

Brox RedGloves wrote:

mechaPoet wrote:

Question:

So, I think we can all agree that sexism exists, yeah?

Yes Virginia, there is sexism

mechaPoet wrote:

And at least some of us can agree that it's rooted in misogyny (so even when men are oppressed by sexism, it's because of a sexist valuing of masculinity and devaluing of femininity).

Nice try.

What you're saying here is that when a man hates women, he's wrong, and sexist; but when a woman hates men, it's really the man's fault anyway, so he's still wrong. Grow up. Take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

No. More like when men who don't behave in a properly manly fashion are called "girls" - or less polite names relating to women.

"You throw like a girl", for example.

[Caineach]

Mackenzie Kavanaugh wrote:

If you're going to say, 'no game sells as well as ______', please at least list a game in the top 10 most sold. Madden isn't even on that list, and the best Call of Duty has ever placed is #14.

Call of Duty:Ghosts was number 2 in sales last year according to this site. Though that is not end of year numbers.

This site has call of Duty as the top selling console fanchise domestically in 2011, 2012, 3rd and 6th in 2013 (GTA beats it), and 2nd, 4th and 6th in 2014. It splits it by console. Switching to a global view and only a few games sneak in above it. It is in the top 10 for all consoles it is available for each year.

You must be looking at all time sales numbers or something.

[Sissyl]

The list of bestselling games ever was about what I expected: Tetris at a hundred million sold. Then Nintendo games and Minecraft. Then Call of duty. The editions of it that sold more than fifteen million copies added up to around a hundred and fifty million copies. Battlefield 3 also managed twenty million. GTA also did very well. However, in general, Nintendo's games sell better than CoD.

[Krensky]

Over all time, and lots of those are pack ins.

Companies don't care about that.

They care what sold the most last year.

[mechaPoet]

Brox RedGloves wrote:

mechaPoet wrote:

Question:

So, I think we can all agree that sexism exists, yeah?

Yes Virginia, there is sexism

mechaPoet wrote:

And at least some of us can agree that it's rooted in misogyny (so even when men are oppressed by sexism, it's because of a sexist valuing of masculinity and devaluing of femininity).

Nice try.

What you're saying here is that when a man hates women, he's wrong, and sexist; but when a woman hates men, it's really the man's fault anyway, so he's still wrong. Grow up. Take responsibility for yourself and your actions.

What I'm saying here is that when a man hates a woman for her femininity, or refusal to conform to femininity, that's wrong. And when men experience hatred because of their perceived femininity, that's also wrong. The drive here is misogyny: the devaluing of the feminine and the expectation that the feminine should reside in women's bodies at all times.

EDIT: And when women hate men for doing sexist s+%!, that's not sexism. That's anger at an oppressive system and the turds who propagate and reinforce it.

[Brox RedGloves]

mechaPoet wrote:

Lemmy wrote:

mechaPoet wrote:

It is impossible to be sexist toward men in the same way that it is impossible to be racist toward white people or classist toward the ruling class. Please note that I'm using these "-ist" terms in the context of their existence as oppressive systems, not as simple prejudice.

Because the system never favors women in western society... It's not like women suffer lighter sentences for the exact same crimes or anything...

Nope. The Patriarchy (tm) always rigs the game in favor of those evil manspreading males...

What crimes are you referring to? For certain crimes, I grant that this is possible, I just don't know what they are. Although, have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?

I know, for instance, that men who beat or murder their intimate partners with their bare hands (including strangulation) receive less jail time and less harsh sentences than women who murder or injure abusive male partners with guns, because they are often less physically able to defend themselves without a weapon. But shooting someone is for some reason not as serious a crime as strangling someone.

Since you want to be deliberately obtuse, try comparing the sentencing of male teachers who have had sex with their students against female teachers who have done the same. Now (for the record) I'm not advocating for male sex offenders to get lighter sentencing.

[BlackOuroboros]

Hey people, not to be a Debby Downer, but perhaps we could ratchet down the tone of discussion a bit? I'm all for a spirited debate, but I would rather this thread not get locked and we know that the mods are a stone's throw from pulling the trigger on it.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed some more posts and locking. We really don't have time to babysit this thread as closely as we've needed to and it really seems like attitudes can't be kept in check here.