Anita Sarkeesian on GamerGate: ‘We Have a Problem and We’re Going to Fix This’
But something about this recent, really intense backlash has gotten the attention of a lot of people who were on the fence about whether the harassment of women was actually an issue. Now, if you’re involved in gaming in any capacity, you can’t help but see what’s happening in terms of women being driven out, women being attacked, being silenced, having horrific harassment and assault done to them. You can’t avoid it. There’s no way to not see that this is happening.
GamerGate is really a sexist temper tantrum [laughs]. That’s kind of a silly, funny way of putting it, but it’s kind of what it feels like, right? They’re going after and targeting women who are trying to make changes in the industry. They’re attacking anyone who supports women.
Tweeting critically about GamerGate in any way guarantees hours of random people filling your mentions.
There are people I’ve blocked for a long time who will still respond to every single person that replies positively to me on Twitter. I have quite a few cyber-stalkers like that.
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But if we’re gonna dig down a little bit further, what’s happening is that the industry is changing. This consciousness-raising is happening. People are starting to acknowledge that the industry has a problem with women, that sexism and misogyny are quite prevalent both in the larger culture and within the games — of course, not in all of them by any stretch of the imagination, but in quite a few, as my videos point out. Developers are starting to talk within their studios about how they want their games and their representations to change. Communities are starting to determine what is appropriate behavior within their communities. There’s this overarching feeling of, “We have a problem and we’re gonna fix this.”
That’s what the GamerGate temper tantrum is reacting to. It’s trying to hold on to this status quo, this illusion that gaming is for men, that it can never change, that it can never be more inclusive than that. We’re thinking, “Well, inclusiveness is a great thing! Bringing more people into gaming, telling a wider range of stories from different perspectives — that can only be good!” They take that as an attack on their little base of male-dominated gaming. Does that make sense?
It does, particularly when you actually watch your videos. You go out of your way to say that just because sexist tropes exist in certain games doesn’t mean those games have no redeeming qualities, or that you can’t enjoy them. Yet you’re being treated like Khrushchev banging his shoe on the table and yelling, “We will bury you.”
The vitriolic reaction far outweighs the content. If we are going to be honest about what I do, if we explain the academic language around it, it’s really rather boring. I like to think that I make interesting, engaging videos that aren’t as boring as all that, but… [laughs]. It’s straightforward textual analysis. I’m looking at patterns and presenting evidence and arguments to back up those claims. That’s what I do! [Laughs] And the reaction is like I’m trying to say that all games are bad, or all games should be taken away, or that these games shouldn’t exist, instead of “Hey, we are complex and intelligent creatures and we can hold multiple ideas in our heads at the same time.” We can be critical of the things that we love. That is possible.
You’ve made the point that aside from all their sociopolitical failings, these shopworn tropes are also simply a failure of imagination in a field that’s capable of imagining pretty much anything, right?
Right. If for no other reason, improving the representation of women will hopefully help to inspire more creative writing. The media are in a rut. We have big blockbuster films every year that are the same stories recycled over and over again. We have video games every year that are the same brooding antiheroes over and over again. Creating new stories with new perspectives is going to make games more interesting. It’s going to make storytelling more expansive and exciting and engaging.