Christina Hoff Sommers is an old school faux-feminist who’s devoted the last several decades to trashing feminism. Lately she’s apparently decided to appeal to a younger audience — or at least a more immature one — by pandering to the #GamerGate crowd.
That’s probably worth a post or two in itself, but in the meantime you might enjoy this excellent song that deftly rebuts the, er, arguments in her recent video about sexism in video games and why she thinks that’s somehow not a real issue because, you know, dudes like to look at boobies when they play games. No, that’s really her argument — though I’m not sure it even qualifies as an argument, technically speaking.
Anyway, enjoy!
And here’s her original video, if you’re feeling masochistic and would actually enjoy sitting through six and a half very long minutes of simple-minded, patronizing, disingenuous, evidence-free pseudoarguments delivered by someone desperately pandering to terrible, terrible people.
Dangit, Viro! I had cucumber salad for dinner.
Now I feel all ooky.
I own a bowed psaltery. But I won’t let it anywhere near a cucumber.
@alaisvex – that sounds like a fun game.
Of course! That’s why games like BMX XXX and Scarlet Blade are so popular.
Mandolins are evil. Yes, they are handy for all sorts of slicing but they are just as good at slicing thumbs as they are are veggies. *protip* The guard most come with is crap, get a pair of kevlar gloves.
Back to mandolins and egg slicers. The other day I was inspired … to slice up small-moderate sized mushrooms using the eggslicer. Absolutely perfect.
(We’ve got a couple of versions of a mandolin, but mushrooms are a bit small to fiddle with for those.)
Kittehserf: I’m suddenly seeing the Diana of Ephesus here …
Do you have her number – I may be in love. Or lust anyhow.
Consid’rin’ what she did to Actaeon, Phoenician, I don’t think I’d advise calling her!
Plus, even if she does like you, you’ll have to watch out for her twin brother!
Ugh.
When she says that half of “gamers are female so there’s no sexism”, why am I reminded of the oft-repeated right-wing talking point that says: “There is discrimination against [insert oppressed group here], because so many of them are in showbiz!”
^ Minor correction:”There is *no* discrimination against “
So I’ve been pretty much out of this debate due to not really being involved in games/gaming communities for the last year or so. I watched Sommers video and…yeah. She twisted the argument into a strange “games make you sexist/violent” which puts feminist critics into the uncool parents category. It’s weird that she’ll mention a rise in women playing video games but sees discussion and demand for a wider variety to accommodate this increasing audience as a negative attack on males and male cultures. What’s wrong with a gay gamer wanting a game where the protagonist can rescue his boyfriend from the dark wizard? Where have these “relentless attacks” come from?
The ending made me cringe. So they’re funny, creative smart guys….great. Except, that means squat. You can be smart and witty and still be a bully. You can be creative and still be a rapist. How does a few positive traits in some guys she spent probably no more than 25 minutes talking to negate that there are areas and people within this community that are obviously misogynistic/homophobic and aggressive?
And Oprah’s an icon of feminist entertainment now?
I’m losing hope to a friend of mine. He just posted that original video not too long ago and in general his FB wall is drowning into shit from GG supporters. He thinks it’s about journalistic integrity and misogyny shitstorm is just something that derails from the real issue.
He also just showed how damn hypocritical he can be.
I’m just getting so tired of this. I don’t want to stop being friends, we get along just fine and he’s otherwise fun to be around. But every once a while he just grinds my gears so bad ARRRGH.