Anita Sarkeesian Is Wrong - Feminism

Anita Sarkeesian is a "media critic" who created an internet shitstorm when she launched a kickstarter to tackle sexism in video games titled 'Tropes vs Women in Video Games'. She received quite a backlash - the video was spammed on troll haven 4-chan and abusive comments followed on the pitch video.

Whilst the abuse is regrettable, Anita had no problem selecting out the abusive comments and using them to promote herself as a victim to anyone who would listen, meanwhile ignoring legitimate criticism which she received.  She went on to raise 150,000 dollars.

A number of factors play into how this project has been received. First and foremost being that Anita is not much of a critic. Certainly not one deserving much attention. Her channel feminist frequency on youtube presents what is largely nit-picking and lacking in substance, her presentations are extremely one-sided with a feminist agenda driving the content, for example her bayonetta video. She took the video down, but a number of users have mirrored her video, which can only be described as a hatchet job. There's little doubt that Anita intends to whine about female characters designed to appeal to men. Of course we know that the reverse is never the case for predominantly female centric media.

Gamers are generally sick of their hobby being stigmatised by outsiders like Sarkeesian. Of course she claims to be a gamer, but that seems doubtful. She had to buy a whole heap of games with the kickstarter money to do "research". Ie. She hasn't played many games. Though the notion that she might actually do some research for this video series is refreshing. But having said that she's already made comments on Bastion complaining about the female character, which suggest shes rushing through the games since Zia is actually a really interesting character. She also tweeted about how ICO is the most sexist game she has ever played, which is an indication of what to expect.

One thing I don't expect her to notice is that game characters do tend to be a little one dimensional regardless of gender. Many games in her pile there are primarily action orientated and the character is not much more than an avatar.  Nor do I expect her to recognise that games are escapism and tend to present a hyper or idealised reality.

It could well be there is something to be said on the issue but Anita Sarkeesian is not the person to do it. She has already concluded that everything is sexist so I don't have high hopes here.