On sexism, subtle vs. blatant
Jul. 8th, 2012 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseIt's been an interesting few weeks for gender issues in the gamer subculture. (And I use "interesting" in a vaguely Chinese sense, simultaneously meaning "awful and disheartening" and "making opportunities for change".) I don't really follow gaming news, but these two stories have both filtered in through my social networks, largely because I have awesome friends who care about gender issues as much as I do. As unsettling as they each are individually, however, I thought they proved an interesting counterpoint to each other, in that they demonstrate two very different but equally destructive forms of sexism.
First, and most depressing, is the story of Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist pop culture critic who had started a Kickstarter with the purpose of creating a series of short videos examining various gender-related tropes in video games. Not exactly a radical topic, but something about her plans poked the gamer subculture right in a soft place; she's since been subjected to an unremitting campaign of harassment for her temerity. (Link borderline NSFW, and almost certainly NSFyour faith in humanity.) Fortunately, the situation is not without its upsides; the publicity from this outburst has also led to a huge outpouring of support (and money for her Kickstarter), as well as some very thoughtful and soul-searching pieces on the many problems with such harassment, and why letting it continue is problematic, but trying to stop it even more so.
Obviously, the sexism in that situation is pretty easy to identify. But a friend's reaction to another clash between similar demographics reminded me that sexism takes many subtler forms, too.
In this instance, a Twitter user had addressed a couple of tweets to Felicia Day:
@feliciaday, I keep seeing everywhere. Question: Do you matter at all? Do you even provide anything useful to gaming, besides "personality?"
@feliciaday, could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe? You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium.
Given that Day is one of the few well-known female celebrities in gamer culture, this also prompted quite a few accusations of sexism, many of them knee-jerk and vitriolic in nature. My friend was puzzled; he acknowledged the guy was talking out of his ass but questioned whether or not the comments were sexist, and whether (as he suspected) the furor over their supposed sexism was detracting from the other problems with his comments (their untruth and unkindness, for instance).
I had to think that one over for a couple of days, but I eventually wrote him this email:
I've been giving a lot of thought to the item you posted a bit ago re: Felicia Day and whether the dude was being sexist in his accusations. It *did* strike me as sexist, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why, so I didn't want to respond with nothing but my knee-jerk reaction - because I absolutely agree that the feminist demographic as a whole has a tendency to respond to things with knee-jerk "OMG SEXIST" accusations without properly articulating *why* something is sexist. Which I very much dislike, as it's unproductive and only makes people defensive and angry. But that's beside the point.
So here are my thoughts: Calling Day a "glorified booth babe" and implying that all she contributes to gamer culture is her looks may not be blatantly sexist, the way it would be if the person had said that she *wasn't capable* of contributing anything because her looks were all she was good for. But it's still subtly sexist, largely because there's an unspoken rule in our culture that a woman's looks are her first and best asset, and any other positive qualities she might have are secondary.
A good rule of thumb in determining whether a statement is sexist/racist/homophobic/what have you is to turn it around and ask it of someone of a different sex/race/orientation (viz. those 'questionnaires' floating around with items like "How long have you suspected you were heterosexual?" and "Are you aware that heterosexual experiences can have negative side-effects?" - pointing out how, even though homosexuality is far more accepted in the mainstream now, it's still viewed as a deviation from the norm rather than simply another facet of normal). And I really don't see *anyone* accusing, say, Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade, or Wil Wheaton, of being glorified beefcake and contributing nothing to gamer culture but their looks. You could convincingly make the argument that all three examples are more prominent than Day, but in this era of Google, it would have taken him all of five minutes to find out that she has, in fact, made quite a few contributions to gamer community, if he had bothered to look. So yes, the fact that he was perfectly willing to assume that she was famous solely because of her looks was, frankly, sexist.
But, unfortunately, subtlety and nuance tend to be the first casualties in any Internet flame war, and while I'm sure there are other feminists out there who are also articulating the point, I'm sure it's getting lost in the accusations and counter-accusations flying about.
Incidentally, another example of this sort of subtle sexism comes in this email forward, which unfortunately is still making the rounds despite being completely untrue. There's no blatant sexism, exactly, but it's hard to imagine that the portrayal of Giffords as an imbecile is completely unrelated to her relative youth, attractiveness, and gender. It's a sad truth, but attractive women are nearly always assumed to be less intelligent than their less-attractive counterparts; whereas a good-looking man is almost always assumed to be more intelligent. I can't even tell you how many times I've met people (mostly men, but not always) who are obviously startled when I express an opinion and back it up with solid arguments, despite being dressed up and perhaps showing a little cleavage...
First, and most depressing, is the story of Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist pop culture critic who had started a Kickstarter with the purpose of creating a series of short videos examining various gender-related tropes in video games. Not exactly a radical topic, but something about her plans poked the gamer subculture right in a soft place; she's since been subjected to an unremitting campaign of harassment for her temerity. (Link borderline NSFW, and almost certainly NSFyour faith in humanity.) Fortunately, the situation is not without its upsides; the publicity from this outburst has also led to a huge outpouring of support (and money for her Kickstarter), as well as some very thoughtful and soul-searching pieces on the many problems with such harassment, and why letting it continue is problematic, but trying to stop it even more so.
Obviously, the sexism in that situation is pretty easy to identify. But a friend's reaction to another clash between similar demographics reminded me that sexism takes many subtler forms, too.
In this instance, a Twitter user had addressed a couple of tweets to Felicia Day:
@feliciaday, I keep seeing everywhere. Question: Do you matter at all? Do you even provide anything useful to gaming, besides "personality?"
@feliciaday, could you be considered nothing more than a glorified booth babe? You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium.
Given that Day is one of the few well-known female celebrities in gamer culture, this also prompted quite a few accusations of sexism, many of them knee-jerk and vitriolic in nature. My friend was puzzled; he acknowledged the guy was talking out of his ass but questioned whether or not the comments were sexist, and whether (as he suspected) the furor over their supposed sexism was detracting from the other problems with his comments (their untruth and unkindness, for instance).
I had to think that one over for a couple of days, but I eventually wrote him this email:
I've been giving a lot of thought to the item you posted a bit ago re: Felicia Day and whether the dude was being sexist in his accusations. It *did* strike me as sexist, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why, so I didn't want to respond with nothing but my knee-jerk reaction - because I absolutely agree that the feminist demographic as a whole has a tendency to respond to things with knee-jerk "OMG SEXIST" accusations without properly articulating *why* something is sexist. Which I very much dislike, as it's unproductive and only makes people defensive and angry. But that's beside the point.
So here are my thoughts: Calling Day a "glorified booth babe" and implying that all she contributes to gamer culture is her looks may not be blatantly sexist, the way it would be if the person had said that she *wasn't capable* of contributing anything because her looks were all she was good for. But it's still subtly sexist, largely because there's an unspoken rule in our culture that a woman's looks are her first and best asset, and any other positive qualities she might have are secondary.
A good rule of thumb in determining whether a statement is sexist/racist/homophobic/what have you is to turn it around and ask it of someone of a different sex/race/orientation (viz. those 'questionnaires' floating around with items like "How long have you suspected you were heterosexual?" and "Are you aware that heterosexual experiences can have negative side-effects?" - pointing out how, even though homosexuality is far more accepted in the mainstream now, it's still viewed as a deviation from the norm rather than simply another facet of normal). And I really don't see *anyone* accusing, say, Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade, or Wil Wheaton, of being glorified beefcake and contributing nothing to gamer culture but their looks. You could convincingly make the argument that all three examples are more prominent than Day, but in this era of Google, it would have taken him all of five minutes to find out that she has, in fact, made quite a few contributions to gamer community, if he had bothered to look. So yes, the fact that he was perfectly willing to assume that she was famous solely because of her looks was, frankly, sexist.
But, unfortunately, subtlety and nuance tend to be the first casualties in any Internet flame war, and while I'm sure there are other feminists out there who are also articulating the point, I'm sure it's getting lost in the accusations and counter-accusations flying about.
Incidentally, another example of this sort of subtle sexism comes in this email forward, which unfortunately is still making the rounds despite being completely untrue. There's no blatant sexism, exactly, but it's hard to imagine that the portrayal of Giffords as an imbecile is completely unrelated to her relative youth, attractiveness, and gender. It's a sad truth, but attractive women are nearly always assumed to be less intelligent than their less-attractive counterparts; whereas a good-looking man is almost always assumed to be more intelligent. I can't even tell you how many times I've met people (mostly men, but not always) who are obviously startled when I express an opinion and back it up with solid arguments, despite being dressed up and perhaps showing a little cleavage...
