Tropes vs. Women - Discussion

[Nero D. Ace]

Right, so for those of you that don't know, there's this lady by the name of Anita Sarkeesian who started this project on Kickstarter to make a series of videos about how stereotypical women are portrayed in video games. Now, Kickstarter has done some amazing things lately. Games that would otherwise never have seen the light of day are now getting the chance to fly with fans and curious on-goers backing projects that were denied funding by the big shot companies like EA, Activision and such.

Now, back on the topic of the video series, this chick here wanted to make 5 videos covering different topics about how women are shown in a poor light in most video games. Now, I dunno what she was thinking but she decided it'd be a good idea to broadcast it on one of the worst comment-based sites in the world - YouTube. That's right, as you can guess, withing a few hours, trolls from all over the internet started one of the biggest attacks in internet history. From naming her with certain vulgar titles, reporting her kickstarter page and flagging the video, it was a giant troll fest.

This, of course, led her to gain sympathy from many people and actually made the project more well known. So well known, in fact that a project that might have earlier scrapped by with the bare minimum of its initial 6000 dollar budget now had a funding of OVER 150,000 bug bucks.

OVER 150 K!

Now, I don't mean to be offending anyone here, I cannot stress that part enough ... but ... a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a video series about women's portrayal in video games? ...

...

...

...

If there are so many periods everywhere, it's only because I still haven't gotten over it. Sure, since then, she's increased the video count from 5 to 12, but still ... ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!

ARE YOU INSANE!?

ARE YOU FRIGGING KIDDING ME!?

WHO THE HELL NEEDS THAT AMOUNT OF MONEY TO MAKE A DOCUMENTARY!?

I'VE SEEN PEOPLE MAKE DOCUMENTARIES BEFORE! ALL YOU NEED IS A CAMERA, A PC AND SOME DECENT EDITING SOFTWARE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Again, I don't mean to offend all these "brilliant" backers of this "awesome" project but the counter displays the amount of money the project has received. WHY, just WHY would you go on to add an additional ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS to a project that met it's funding requirement?

I actually checked and here's what she's written about the reason for the funding -

'Creating these videos take a lot of time and money to produce. I will be researching and playing hundreds of titles from across the gaming industry (including some truly awful games that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone!). Your support will go towards production costs, equipment, games and downloadable content.'

Uh huh, so basically what that meant to me was that ... she wants US to pay for HER games so she can play them and research them ...?

Listen, i get that most reviewers get a free copy of the game from companies and that you may not be lucky enough to get backing from them. It may have something to do with the fact that you're making a video series to trash their female characters but let's not get into that.

There are a TONNE of reviewers out there who're in the same situation and they end up PIRATING their games if they can't afford it. You're not gonna be waving the box you bought the game in the video anyways so might as well pirate the shit outta it.

And now that I've gotten my disbelief about the funding outta the way, the next thing i wanna talk about, and this is the main reason for the topic is -

IS THIS REALLY NECESSARY?

I mean, I checked out some of the episode titles. Just hear me out, okay?

• Damsel in Distress - Video #1
  
• The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2
  
• The Sexy Sidekick - Video #3
  
• The Sexy Villainess - Video #4
  
• Background Decoration - Video #5
  
• Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress - Video #6
  
• Women as Reward - Video #7
  
• Mrs. Male Character - Video #8
  
• Unattractive Equals Evil - Video #9
  
• Man with Boobs - Video #10
  
• Positive Female Characters! - Video #11
  
• Top 10 Most Common Defenses of Sexism in Games - Video #12
  

Alrighty, one look at that list and I already figured out a bunch of games she's talking about. Keep it in reference, I'm calling it -

Mario Bros. - Princess Peach

Fighting Game Booby Lady

Legend of Zelda

Lara Croft

Games centered around defending female characters - ICO, RE4

Now, this is an explanation that'll take pages if I went into each game separately so if someone wants clarification, I'll do it in my next post. For the time being, let's focus on the fact that all of these games have a moment in which women are shown in a way that "feminists" don't appreciate. Notice the double brackets in feminists. That's because most of the time, I consider those people more sexist that feminist.

Because it is absolutely impossible to please these people. Don't believe me? Let's contrast to games - Lara Croft and Legend of Zelda. Zelda is of course the 'Damsel in Distress' that keeps getting kidnapped and needs a male manly hero with ginormous muscles and thick moustaches and a big jumping capacity to rescue her.

...

Whoops, I messed up the games a bit. Anyways, compare that to Lara Croft, in which you're a gun tooting babe whose only enemies, at least the cannon fodder seems to consist mostly of men and these people will hate on both games, calling Zelda helpless and Lara a slut.

WHAT ... THE ... FUCK ...?

That's why I simply can't get over the fact that this is one of those internet things that really doesn't deserve all the attention it's getting. Hell, by making this topic, I'm bringing attention to it but I might as well get the views of those who think like I do out there.

Anyways - thoughts? suggestions? bashes? corrections? trolls?

I wanna know what you guys think about this. Post it in the box below and let's get this discussion rolling.

Ref - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/566429325/tropes-vs-women-in-video-games

[† Emotional Outlet]

I know Escher Girls talked about this, but I can't remember when. I'll look through the archive in a bit.

I'm not familiar with the entire situation, but I have heard tell of it here and there.

Now, back on the topic of the video series, this chick here wanted to make 5 videos covering different topics about how women are shown in a poor light in most video games. Now, I dunno what she was thinking but she decided it'd be a good idea to broadcast it on one of the worst comment-based sites in the world - YouTube. That's right, as you can guess, withing a few hours, trolls from all over the internet started one of the biggest attacks in internet history. From naming her with certain vulgar titles, reporting her kickstarter page and flagging the video, it was a giant troll fest.

That's my understanding of the situation as well. It's not her fault for posting it on Youtube, considering it's size and popularity. She mentioned on her Kickstarter page that she "released a video series called Tropes vs Women analyzing female representations in the mainstream media. This previous series was highly successful and shared all over the web." I don't really blame her for using Youtube any more than I blame the Air Force for using Youtube to advertise for its jobs. It's a tool.

I have read that people defaced her Wiki page, "the aftermath of which had her top Google search result returning the sentence "Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist video blogger and [slur]"."

This, of course, led her to gain sympathy from many people and actually made the project more well known. So well known, in fact that a project that might have earlier scrapped by with the bare minimum of its initial 6000 dollar budget now had a funding of OVER 150,000 bug bucks.

OVER 150 K!

Is that her fault? I'm not certain what you intend to express here. People donated to donate. She didn't force anyone to donate (I certainly didn't feel compelled to donate at any point). What else do you expect her to do with the money if not make more videos?

I'VE SEEN PEOPLE MAKE DOCUMENTARIES BEFORE! ALL YOU NEED IS A CAMERA, A PC AND SOME DECENT EDITING SOFTWARE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Maybe she has ideas in mind to make it more unique and needs the funding. She did mention she wanted to bump up the quality, so there's that. I don't know. People will give their money wherever they want. I'm not sure why you're shouting about this?

Again, I don't mean to offend all these "brilliant" backers of this "awesome" project but the counter displays the amount of money the project has received. WHY, just WHY would you go on to add an additional ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS to a project that met it's funding requirement?

People like to donate. I donate whenever I can. I give money to starving artists on Tumblr whenever I can and overpay for commissions. People can be generous. Let's not fault them for that. Would you say this about every project on Kickstarter that has met similar results with its funding?

I don't know why "brilliant' and "awesome" are in quotes. Some people think it's awesome. What's the harm in that?

Uh huh, so basically what that meant to me was that ... she wants US to pay for HER games so she can play them and research them ...?

[...]

There are a TONNE of reviewers out there who're in the same situation and they end up PIRATING their games if they can't afford it. You're not gonna be waving the box you bought the game in the video anyways so might as well pirate the shit outta it.

Sure, why not? Why not say up front that's what she's going to be doing with the money? I don't really see a problem with that, and at least she's being honest and not pirating them.

Alrighty, one look at that list and I already figured out a bunch of games she's talking about. Keep it in reference, I'm calling it -

You can also look at the picture on the Kickstarter page.

Because it is absolutely impossible to please these people.

People in general tend to be difficult to please, haha. Look at how much people cried out when Facebook changed its layout!

Whoops, I messed up the games a bit. Anyways, compare that to Lara Croft, in which you're a gun tooting babe whose only enemies, at least the cannon fodder seems to consist mostly of men and these people will hate on both games, calling Zelda helpless and Lara a slut.

Everything gets hate. I love Homestuck and its portrayal of its female characters, but other people will declare Hussie sexist, citing Jade's gardening, Rose's knitting, Kanaya's interest in fashion, and Roxy's drinking as negative portrayals of women while neglecting the fact Jade is a badass with a gun and was a major player in the game, Rose was encouraged to take up knitting by her friend John and is actually more interested in eldritch horrors, Kanaya deals with every problem with a chainsaw and has cut at least two people in half with it, and Roxy is amazing at programming and her strife specibus is fistkind. The implication was feminine things are bad and giving female characters feminine hobbies is bad.

Regardless, I don't think you can just assume her videos will simply be about bashing video games. Take a look at Escher Girls--it's a blog about the weird anatomy female characters are subjected to in comics and games. The person running the blog doesn't hate comics or games, doesn't hate sexy portrayals of women pointblank. She's in fact commented on many redraws that the fixed versions are sexier and she appreciates a nice rack as much as the next person.

I personally read several comics voraciously and game as regularly as the next person, but I'm also a feminist and I find these portrayals tiring. You can't fight a person with your bum and chest facing the enemy at the same time. You can't fire a weapon while holding it like that. That face doesn't say "I'm going to kill you" so much as "I want you inside me". There's a time for sexy women and, for me anyway, that time is not "all the time".

That's why I simply can't get over the fact that this is one of those internet things that really doesn't deserve all the attention it's getting. Hell, by making this topic, I'm bringing attention to it but I might as well get the views of those who think like I do out there.

There's a lot out there that gets a lot of undeserved attention in at least one person's eyes. Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but it matters to her and her backers. It matters to the people who have seen her videos and care about the message she's trying to send.

I feel like people are personally hurt when people post stuff like this Kickstarter, like they're pointing the fingers at them and blaming them, and that's why they get so het up about it. Honestly, after spending a while on Tumblr, being exposed to Social Justice Sallys has really tired me out on getting offended over a lot of stuff. Watching the back and forth from every side for every conceivable social justice issue is exhausting. I've seen people blog about being otherkin, being a plural system, screaming "CIS SCUM" and "SINGLET PRIVILEGE" as they spew hatred. I've seen people complain about humanised Friendship is Magic fan art, crying foul when people make Twilight Sparkle or Princess Celestia have dark skin, growling slurs and disapproval at people who draw Pinkie Pie chubby or Rainbow Dash in a wheelchair.

Anyway, I hope the best for Anita. I'll look further into this, but I follow a lot of feminist blogs and haven't heard any criticism of her being too extreme in her views. Regardless of her message, I don't see anything to be gained in being mad at her or sending her hate mail, especially to the extent people harassed her. I could be mad all day at horrible Bronies, sending hate mail and screaming and defacing pages, but then my fingers would be bleeding and my head would explode.

[idl12]

Would've rathered that money went to fund Wasteland 2 honestly..as for sexism in games..the way I see it,, a lot of males are involved in making video games..males with sexual hormones and desires, seeking to impress a crowd, comprising mainly of males with similar homones and desires. The solution I believe with my limited knowledge would be for more women to get involved in the development of games, start a niche market for "girl gamers" hell start a niche market within that niche market for insecure feminists who don't actually play games themselves but complain about it anyway(At least this person is making the effort to actually play all those games though..I reluctantly give her props for that).At the end of the day, the majority of gamers are men, men who probably aren't viewed that highly amongst non gamer girls anyway..is it really that unreasonable to have at least one medium where they can stand upon that manly pedestal of testosterone, whilst the women take a back seat for once? I mean, it's not like some women don't appreciate an attractive male protagonist in compromising situations themselves.

[† Emotional Outlet]

start a niche market for "girl gamers" hell start a niche market within that niche market for insecure feminists who don't actually play games themselves but complain about it anyway(At least this person is making the effort to actually play all those games though..I reluctantly give her props for that).

Why do we need a niche, though? I've seen "girl games" and they all seem to be directed towards the younger types. I'm a while away from finding much entertainment from helping Barbie find her shoes in the Dreamhouse, haha. We don't need games made specifically for us any more than we need comics or books specifically made for us. Interesting games should transcend the gender identity of the person playing it.

At the end of the day, the majority of gamers are men

Nielsen Study: Majority PC Gamers Female, Solitary

Female gamers aren't that small of a minority. It depends on the game and the time of day. I mean, come on. My Little Pony has a huge male following. There are so many people I met in the military who play with LEGO bricks it's absurd. Is there any reason female gamers can't enjoy the same games as men? Is there any reason why adults can't enjoy things meant for younger people? Try to take away Pokemon from someone who loves it and they might try to take your arm from you!

is it really that unreasonable to have at least one medium where they can stand upon that manly pedestal of testosterone, whilst the women take a back seat for once? I mean, it's not like some women don't appreciate an attractive male protagonist in compromising situations themselves.

Women take the back seat a lot. Gaming isn't some hallowed final bastion of manliness, haha.

ETA: Some more stats on female gamers.

"Also, the percentage of women now playing online has risen to 43%, up 4% from 2004. The same study shows that 48% of game purchasers are female."

Edited July 11, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[idl12]

I guess I was wrong about female gamers being a minority then..I don't see that many though..unfortunately(and I'm a pc gamer)lol. I'm not saying that women shouldn't enjoy the same games that men do(maybe I kinda did? stupid me) It just irks me when they complain about games made by mostly men(ever look at any "making off" videos?..total sausage fest) doesn't portray them properly, Off course there will be some bias..they are males..males like flirtatious females in revealing armor. So do a lot of people who play their games. Plus there is the fact that many men in games are portrayed as muscle bound, brown haired, fornicating, pshycotic killers yet we don't complain...though I guess that kinda falls into the same logic as "Playas vs sluts"

[† Shazi]

(and I'm a pc gamer)

that would be why you don't see many women. most women online either don't say their a woman because the first thing that happens is they get hit on by EVERYONE, not to mention they don't usually appreciate the f*cking trolls that (if they didn't reveal themselves as a woman) would be calling them things like faggot and noob and GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE.

i for one avoid multiplayer for that reason, i would rather not be insulted and i would rather not be hit on, i have a boyfriend and i'm quite happy with him. my class in games design is half females and 9 times out of 10 the girls produce the better work. we had projects where we designed bosses and enemies and all of the guys based theirs on shooters, the girls went with more interesting concepts and got the better marks for it.

as for the women in games, yes they're portrayed in a sexist manner in a lot of games, but at the same time, those games are what 10-20 years old now? newer games seem to not be gender exclusive anymore.. besides, i love a lot of so called sexist games like zelda, just because the princess is useless doesn't mean all the female characters in it are, like saria, shiek, the pirate chick from wind waker, and in spirit tracks zelda was rather useful even if she was a ghost.

hell Yuna in final fantasy X was useless until she got more than one Aeon. If you see something sexist in a game and only that then clearly you aren't taking in all of the character, because 9 times out of 10 theres something there that balances it out.

if you look at internet culture the way it is today, it's not the games that are sexist IMO it's the people who play it, not saying that any of you guys are, i know most of you better than that but a lot of people who play games are the ones who are sexist not the games themselves.

ALSO games are no more sexist than real life, in fact some of them portray women in a better light than some of the worlds cultures

Edited July 11, 2012 by Shazi

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, no worries.

The muscle-bound hero trope is generally a power fantasy and not a sexual fantasy as in the way they portray women. You also have a wide range of great male characters to look up to--no matter what you respect, whether it's power, money, sexual appeal, intelligence, charisma, technical know-how, there's a male character out there who is developed, interesting, multi-faceted, and well-written. Not so much for women. That's why we kind of get excited every time there's an awesome female character for us to look up to, whether it's Kiddo from Kill Bill or Katniss from Hunger Games. People dislike those characters for different reasons (Kiddo glorifies violence, Katniss doesn't respond to death consistently), but ultimately, they're fantastic characters.

I do agree there is a bias, but I'm not prepared to put the blame on men as a whole. As I mentioned above with Homestuck, I firmly believe men are capable of creating female characters who are just as developed and well-rounded as male characters. I don't think they all think with their other head or that all they want from women is the scantily-clad sex object.

I went and watched all of the Tropes vs Women videos, as well as her take on the Hunger Games. They were very mild videos, if sarcastic at times, but that seems to be her personality. I didn't agree with everything she said, and I disagree with her view that the last two Hunger Games books should be skipped, but overall very interesting and thought-out. With two exceptions, I didn't feel as though she were tearing the movies or shows to shreds, but simply outlining the use of the tropes in the media. This is not a bad thing.

Speaking personally, one of the things I have to do in my therapy sessions is consider all of my maladaptive thought processes, the things that twist my view on life, and become cognizant of when this happens. It's not a fun process to examine these ugly parts of yourself, to look at how it tinges and corrupts everything you do. But it's part of the process to know and be aware of these things. You can't fix a problem if you don't know what it is!

And that's what I feel she has done in those videos--simply put the use of those tropes on display. I love me some TV Tropes. That site is like a drug. Her message syncs with TV Tropes' message--tropes aren't inherently good or bad things. It's when they're overused, treated as a crutch, that makes things silly and frustrating to deal with.

Consider the trope of black hair = bad | blond hair = good. You see it in a lot of different media, from movies to games to books. Brunets are treated as villains and twisted while the fairer haired characters are good and valiant. Consider even anime with white-haired characters and how they're often the evil ones. These tropes aren't inherently bad or discriminatory.

Neither are the tropes she points out in the videos. Yes, these things happens. They're tropes for a reason and have been around since forever. I expect no less from her in her reviews of video games.

One of the videos she did that hit home to me was the Straw Feminist video--it was the last in the series and well worth a watch. It's the basic strawman argument but in a very specific case. To summarise, it's that creators add in these "feminist" characters to their creation--game, movie, show--into a post-feminism world, where gender equality is already achieved. (We don't live in such a world by any means.) They're portrayed as extreme and generally crazy supporters of the movement, set in stark contrast to the main female character(s) to separate her (them) from feminists. Even though, by all means, these main characters are feminist characters.

The example she used was the Powerpuff Girls, which was a cartoon I loved when I was younger. These girls are great representations of strong female characters. One episode stars an extreme feminist villain who convinces the girls to see oppression where there is none, causing some chaos before the girls come to their senses. Thus, the villain is defeated and the girls are disassociated with feminism.

What it comes down to is people not understanding what feminism actually is and basing their internal definition on misrepresentations, and she had a really good clip at the end of the video.

A less than word-for-word quote:

"I mean, I'm not a feminist or anything."

"So you don't think men and women should have equal rights?"

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Then I suggest, my dear, that you look up 'feminist' in the dictionary."

Honestly, I think most people are feminists but won't say so. I do lament the lack of a more agreeable term, but it's not one I shy away from as I once did before.

Again, I frame my comparison in the world of anime because reasons. Is it not annoying and offensive when people call all people who are into anime perverts? Or that they're all paedophiles and all anime is just lolicon? Or that all people who enjoy anime are ugly and fat, despicable "members" of society who serve no purpose in the world?

Of course it is. It's demeaning and dehumanising. It's reprehensible to characterise people like that for one thing.

Same goes for feminism. It's not about hating men. It's not about making women special or giving them special rights. It's not about getting rid of feminine things. It's not about hating housewives or women who decide to stay at home. It's not about hating sexy women or sex workers (many feminists are sex work positive). It's about equality and respect, that people are more than their sex. That's all. We're still trying to get people to agree that people are more than the colour of their skin, so I doubt we're anywhere near the post-feminist utopian worlds the media portrays.

ETA: Yes, I agree, Shazi. People who dismiss things based on singular occurrences tend to miss out on a work as a whole. That's what I liked about Anita's videos and what I like about Escher Girls. They point out the flaws and the tropes, but they don't demonise the media itself.

I felt much the same way in watching her videos, that her examples came from otherwise enjoyable movies or shows, but I understand the intent. Again, using my personal example, just because I am examining these negative aspects of myself and how they have affected me does not mean these maladaptive aspects of myself are the only parts of myself.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Emotional Outlet

[Nero D. Ace]

I've mainly got two problems with this video series and neither of them are on the actual content that's there. I'm actually glad for it. The more opinions being shared, the better.

And it's a common mis-comprehension that females aren't involved in the game development cycle. I mean, yes, there used to be a time where they were in charge of HR and maybe getting the coffee but the times have changed significantly. Hell, Amy Hennig wrote the scripts for The Legacy of Kain series and the Uncharted series. Half of the artists involved are female. We even have quite a lot of programmers as female now!

Anyways, my main problems with the series -

1) It's giant funding. While I agree with ballad that there are several artists out there who need funding, who deserve funding; One Hundred and Forty Five Thousand Dollars overboard is just way too much. Kickstarter is a giant place. It's literally brimming with all sorts of innovative projects that still haven't met their quota. And when I think about all those actual projects - actual gaming projects by an indie studio that wants to do something without the interference of the big boned publishers who weren't able to meet their monthly quota and got scrapped, it just brings a tear to my eye.

Look at the team from Extra Credits. They're just a group of 3 people - an artist, an animator and a game designer who wanna give away their knowledge of the gaming industry to up and coming developers. Every week, they put up a 5-8 minute video clip about a particular subject in game design. A while back, the artist of the group had an accident and the other guys put up a charity thingamajig for her operation. They ended up with a few extra grand and guess what they decided to do with it - Start their own production company. They're currently setting up a plan to use that money to help developers who put up interesting ideas.

That's the kind of thing that makes me proud of this gaming industry. To see how mature we've become in the short time we've been here. Gaming's even been recognized as a medium for art, for crying out loud.

So when I see an excess of that much money being used to make a video series about a topic like this ... I dunno, I just don't know what to feel about it. I certainly don't feel that pride. I especially don't see how this is gonna help us in any way. Ocarina of Time is a great game, one of the best I've ever played. It's a 12 year old game that I feel is better than most of the garbage on the market today and it'll get analyzed and ripped apart just cuz there's some damsels in distress in it.

Now, I dunno if i'm taking the gaming as art medium too seriously, but this is gonna be a piece of art from long ago, which is timeless and beautiful and it's gonna be ripped apart and have it's flaws exposed.

If that weren't bad enough, that's gonna happed while the creator makes a hundred and fifty grand.

I may not be in the right state of mind while saying this but that just sounds evil to me for some reason.

2) It's only gonna be her view on the topic from what it looks and from the intro video itself, i can sense that she's a bit biased. What's educational about it anymore? "Battle of the Sexes in Video Games" would've been a better title AND if she'd co-hosted the series with a guy who knew stuff about game design and how things went and they had a proper debate in it.

There are chicks who get along with dudes hunka dory and there are chicks who just flat out hate it when a member of their species is even slightly downtrodden. This chick falls in the latter category.

Sigh, there are games out there which sometimes display men as pigs, garbage that know only to rape and pillage and should be wiped off the planet by the female lead. Tell me, how ridiculous would it sound if someone did a Men vs. Lara Croft series? or a Men vs. Bayonetta series?

Say what you want about the way they dress, both Lara Croft and Bayonetta are strong willed women. You see it in the way they move, the way they fight, the way they interact in the cut scenes. Hell, I'll throw a game breaker.

Portal.

The main character. The only human in the game. A female. Strong willed. Unwilling to give up. Defeats one of the smartest A.I.'s ever. Twice.

AND she doesn't throw her top off the first chance she gets.

There ARE games out there which do not discriminate towards women and empower them in an emotional way.

All these games have 2 sides to the personality of the females and in her videos, she's obviously only gonna talk about the negative part.

From Shazi's example, let's take Yuna from FFX.

In the original game, lot of personality, lot of character.

In the sequel, ... uhh, pop idol whose power of changing clothes gives her power ... doesn't sound really good, right?

As I mentioned earlier, games are now considered a medium for art. There's good art and there's bad art. There's good paintings and bad paintings.

There's ICO and there's Saints Row the Third.

You can choose you ignore the good and just focus on the bad or you can take them all in, experience them for what they are and take what you want.

If you ask me though, ICO left a helluva bigger impression that Saints.

Again, I'm just gonna conclude by saying that - If she wants to make a video series and get her views out there, good for her. Get a camera, record yourself and post it on YouTube or Penny Arcade or the Escapist, just like all the other guys.

You don't need a Kickstarter page to do that, just your own views and determination.

I'd rather have seen a project going into detail with several interviews with guys like Jonathon Blow, Sid Meier, Warren Spector, Shigeru Miyamoto, Tetsuya Nomura and Hironobu Sakaguchi even! detailing how they got started in the business, what they thought of the games these days, where they felt the industry was headed, what they'd teach the new generation, how they circumvented some of the problems like the Nintendo 64, the graphics situation, fitting everything on one disc, things like that!

That would've even been useful to me and if she'd been doing that, I'd have gone forth and backed that project myself, a good 10 dollar investment.

[† Emotional Outlet]

And it's a common mis-comprehension that females aren't involved in the game development cycle. I mean, yes, there used to be a time where they were in charge of HR and maybe getting the coffee but the times have changed significantly. Hell, Amy Hennig wrote the scripts for The Legacy of Kain series and the Uncharted series. Half of the artists involved are female. We even have quite a lot of programmers as female now!

They're gaining a presence now, yes, but this was not always the case. Regardless, the problem is that people tend to treat this as an anomaly and not just a fact of life that women work. You hear things like, "Best Female Guitarist" but never "Best Male Guitarist". It's silly to qualify things like that. I feel the same about women in the gaming industry. They should be known for doing good work, for knowing their stuff, not just because they're female.

1) It's giant funding. While I agree with ballad that there are several artists out there who need funding, who deserve funding; One Hundred and Forty Five Thousand Dollars overboard is just way too much. Kickstarter is a giant place. It's literally brimming with all sorts of innovative projects that still haven't met their quota. And when I think about all those actual projects - actual gaming projects by an indie studio that wants to do something without the interference of the big boned publishers who weren't able to meet their monthly quota and got scrapped, it just brings a tear to my eye.

As I mentioned previously, people will fund what they want to fund. Anita's backers made their choice to fund her beyond the goal. That is not her fault. It is unfortunate those other projects are not being funded, but perhaps you can help them out by spreading word of mouth. The Internet is infinite--there's certainly room enough for everyone. Hating on something for being popular and garnering a lot of interesting seems counterproductive and unhelpful to the projects you want to see supported.

They ended up with a few extra grand and guess what they decided to do with it - Start their own production company. They're currently setting up a plan to use that money to help developers who put up interesting ideas.

I like Extra Credit's videos.

Who's to say Anita won't do the same? That she won't take the excess she doesn't use and donate it to charity, to various organisations? Who's to say she won't ask people where the money should go once she's done with the videos to make sure people have a say in what charities and programs she donates to?

it'll get analyzed and ripped apart just cuz there's some damsels in distress in it.

Now, I dunno if i'm taking the gaming as art medium too seriously, but this is gonna be a piece of art from long ago, which is timeless and beautiful and it's gonna be ripped apart and have it's flaws exposed.

If that weren't bad enough, that's gonna happed while the creator makes a hundred and fifty grand.

Again, as I mentioned prior, I watched her videos and how she treated movies and television shows while examining the tropes. She treated them well and rarely, rarely made any comment on the quality of the movies and shows themselves. Again, I expect no less of her when she reviews these games.

Examination--or "picking apart" as many people prefer to call it--is one way to enjoy something. If you don't examine and think about what you intake for entertainment, I don't think you're really enjoying it! It's like eating a burger. Do you just stuff the whole thing into your mouth and swallow without tasting any of it? Without thinking about whether the spices work together or if they actually cooked it medium like you asked? Same thing with entertainment. I think about and analyse the things I love.

FFVI is one of my favourite games and I love seeing people's takes on the characters, the plot developments, the world itself, the music, the art, and any other aspect you can imagine.

Nothing is perfect. No game is perfect. You can look at any game, any movie, any source of entertainment, and find tropes in them. Again, tropes are not inherently bad or evil! Read TV Tropes some time for any of your favourite games or shows--what they do and what she does are really similar. She just takes a feminist slant to it is all, but a lot of the tropes she mentioned in her first series are tropes mentioned on TV Tropes!

2) It's only gonna be her view on the topic from what it looks and from the intro video itself, i can sense that she's a bit biased. What's educational about it anymore?

Everyone is biased. She's doing what she wants to do and people are okay with helping her do that. Why should she not be allowed to express her views? Have you seen how views her first series got on Youtube? Over 100k. Compare that to videos who have millions of views, or even over 500k. She's big, but she's not huge. I don't know why you think she shouldn't be allowed to express herself like anyone else.

Sigh, there are games out there which sometimes display men as pigs, garbage that know only to rape and pillage and should be wiped off the planet by the female lead. Tell me, how ridiculous would it sound if someone did a Men vs. Lara Croft series? or a Men vs. Bayonetta series?

Say what you want about the way they dress, both Lara Croft and Bayonetta are strong willed women. You see it in the way they move, the way they fight, the way they interact in the cut scenes. Hell, I'll throw a game breaker.

Many feminists love Croft and that's why there was such a backlash with regards to the new game. I don't know about Bayonetta--my only experience with her and what people think of her is "dat ass".

Yes, there are negative portrayals of men of all types. Nobody is arguing that. However, the number of awesome male characters, how often the main cast is entirely male or with one token female, how often entertainment have women in it but all they do is talk about the male leads? That's the problem. As she mentioned throughout her videos, she's not saying women should be treated special. In her Women in Refrigerators video, she says she's not against female superheros dying or being killed. That's unreasonable. Her problem was the fact these deaths were often treated as simply tools to advance the male character's story, to add depth to their story at the cost of the female. Her problem was these deaths rarely showed the women dying in an honourable way, showed them fighting tooth and nail until the end. In fact, they rarely showed how the woman died in the first place! The male character would just find her already cut up in the kitchen.

There ARE games out there which do not discriminate towards women and empower them in an emotional way.

Nobody is arguing against that. I don't think Anita will argue that either. She doesn't seem extreme in her views in the least.

I'd rather have seen a project going into detail with several interviews with guys like Jonathon Blow, Sid Meier, Warren Spector, Shigeru Miyamoto, Tetsuya Nomura and Hironobu Sakaguchi even! detailing how they got started in the business, what they thought of the games these days, where they felt the industry was headed, what they'd teach the new generation, how they circumvented some of the problems like the Nintendo 64, the graphics situation, fitting everything on one disc, things like that!

That would've even been useful to me and if she'd been doing that, I'd have gone forth and backed that project myself, a good 10 dollar investment.

Curious you listed all men. I Googled interviews for all of them and there were sizable results for each of them. Again, nothing is stopping you from backing the projects you want to back. Rather than be disappointed people are backing Anita, you can help out the other projects you think deserve more attention and help spread word of mouth. Being disappointed in this doesn't help them. It doesn't get money or attention to these other projects.

Like you mentioned, it just brings more attention to Anita and, yes, some of those people you bring to this project will want to back her because they like the work she does! That is not her fault! That is how things work.

[Nero D. Ace]

They're gaining a presence now, yes, but this was not always the case. Regardless, the problem is that people tend to treat this as an anomaly and not just a fact of life that women work. You hear things like, "Best Female Guitarist" but never "Best Male Guitarist". It's silly to qualify things like that. I feel the same about women in the gaming industry. They should be known for doing good work, for knowing their stuff, not just because they're female.

Yeah, I have to agree on that bit. That's the kind of equality I'd like to eventually have in all kinds of fields someday.

But that's the thing, you see. I played the Legacy of Kain series ages ago and didn't finish it. Just last year, I felt like finishing the remaining 2 games and the sheer number of twists and turns and storytelling elements blew me away. It was only much later when I was researching Uncharted that I found out that a female had written that story as well as the screenplay for all the Uncharted games.

Hating on something for being popular and garnering a lot of interesting seems counterproductive and unhelpful to the projects you want to see supported.

Whoa whoa, regardless of the tone I take and my disagreement with the nature of the series, I'm really not trying to hate on this. In fact, now that it has reached it's goal and she's ended up making a tonne of cash, I'd encourage people to go and see them when they come out.

Now I'm the kind of guy who's really nervous with money. I just can't handle it. If someone came up to me, offered me 500 grand and told me to use it to make a game, I would flat out refuse.

Why? I'm a newbie at this thing. I just got started. I'm still learning. I will STILL be learning for another 6 years before I understood how the pipeline works.

Now clearly Anita's trying to set up her own private kind of business. As I mentioned before, 6000 dollars is still too high to make 5 videos of 20 minutes length each. If you have the source material that you've been talking about, it really isn't that hard.

A hundred and fifty k is a large sum of money. People get mugged, killed even for far less than that.

How can anyone justify ACCEPTING that kind of cash to make 7 extra videos?

Who's to say Anita won't do the same? That she won't take the excess she doesn't use and donate it to charity, to various organisations? Who's to say she won't ask people where the money should go once she's done with the videos to make sure people have a say in what charities and programs she donates to?

I dunno. Neither do you. Nor does anyone. We don't have the paper trail following that cash. And if she's just gonna give it away to other charities, then does that mean that people donated money to her so she could donate it to others?

She could EASILY have stopped the cash flow to her project at around 20 k even. Then, put up a link saying -

"Hey guys. These people need money to make better games. You could donate some to them or just keep giving it to me and I'll throw em a bone later."

Examination--or "picking apart" as many people prefer to call it--is one way to enjoy something. If you don't examine and think about what you intake for entertainment, I don't think you're really enjoying it! It's like eating a burger. Do you just stuff the whole thing into your mouth and swallow without tasting any of it? Without thinking about whether the spices work together or if they actually cooked it medium like you asked? Same thing with entertainment. I think about and analyse the things I love.

FFVI is one of my favourite games and I love seeing people's takes on the characters, the plot developments, the world itself, the music, the art, and any other aspect you can imagine.

Okay, now look at what you said here. You like seeing people's takes on the characters. People's. Plural.

That's what I meant by debate.

And why stop there. With a budget like that, invite 60 random people to a debate place. With 150k, that should be feasible.

And while we're at it, put a camera guy on the roadwalk and just start asking random people one question - What they think about females in video games?

Then show their answers. Their reactions. Their responses. It's always better to have multiple people talk about a topic rather than just one person. Then it ceases to be an analysis and becomes one person's views, one person's opinions.

I get that she might have fans who wanna see her do that on her own but there are tonnes of Vloggers like her.

Take Angry Joe for instance. Take Spoony. I like going on their sites and checking out their views. They have a donate button. They have a merchandising place. What they don't have is a kickstarter page asking for money so they can review stuff.

Nothing is perfect. No game is perfect. You can look at any game, any movie, any source of entertainment, and find tropes in them.

I agree with that. WHOLE HEARTILY. I say that a million times a week to anyone who can stand to hear me talk.

A perfect game does not exist. It will never exist. I hope it never exists.

It's the flaws in the product that bring out the rest of it's good parts. Let's take Ocarina of Time, for example. The game started the use of Z Targetting i.e. you look in a direction and tap Z and Link looks there. Now, the world of 3D games was just getting started and they didn't have a second analog stick for camera control. As a result, if you Z targetted an enemy and had a wall behind you, well, you saw the wall. There were times when Link and the enemy went out of view and you flew into a panic wondering if the enemy was close-by or far off.

I wouldn't want that gone. Ever. To me, it felt like the AI was actually smart. That the AI deliberately put me there so I wouldn't be able to see it.

As for TV tropes, I've been there quite often and had a laugh at all the stuff they had. I was amazed by the sheer number of definitions they had made and the compilation of all the examples. Just going through half of Kingdom Hearts took me a whole day.

And Tropes are tropes for a reason. People are used to them. They like them. In the Entertainment Universe, things wouldn't make sense without tropes. Even if you end up doing something extremely original, it'll BECOME a trope with enough backers.

Everyone is biased. She's doing what she wants to do and people are okay with helping her do that. Why should she not be allowed to express her views? Have you seen how views her first series got on Youtube? Over 100k. Compare that to videos who have millions of views, or even over 500k. She's big, but she's not huge. I don't know why you think she shouldn't be allowed to express herself like anyone else.

Dude, she can express herself all she likes. It's her life. If she discovered that this is the sorta thing she likes, good for her. She's found her way.

But expressing yourself and asking for money TO express yourself are different things.

It's like if Leonardo painted the Last Supper to express himself but found out that to paint the Mona Lisa, he would need more paint and thus refused to paint until he got his damn colors, because that's how Leo rolls.

No, he would get up, sell his clothes, sell some of his paintings, be able to afford some paint and paint the damned Lisa.

Now I get that Anita isn't exactly richie rich but she isn't living out of a cardboard box either. The tech has advanced to the point where any shmuck with a cell phone can make a video series. Chris Nolan shot his first film on campus with a bunch of friends and whatever cash he could gather.

Putting on a show that you need money to do something that you yourself wanna do isn't something I like.

I'm a game designer. I have a computer with Unity and UDK on it. If I wanna make a game, I can either go around whining that I don't have the funds to hire this artist and that that programmer and that Project Manager or I can sit my ass down, open Unity and start programming and keep YouTube open for tutorials if i need them.

Many feminists love Croft and that's why there was such a backlash with regards to the new game. I don't know about Bayonetta--my only experience with her and what people think of her is "dat ass".

Yeah, to be honest, I was surprised by that. I loved the new direction they were taking the game in and the fact that they made it so realistic and the fact that Lara IS human who can die and get stabbed everywhere, even raped made me think that those feminists would like how they're finally discussing the issue of rape. Then, Ubisoft had to go an deny what's happening right in front of us and make a gigantic mess of things. Sigh.

As for Bayonetta ...

*facepalm* That's the kind of things that people tend to focus on. I played the game. It's very very "Devil May Cry"-ish. It has a kick-ass story and mythos. Like how guys got the chance to be a cool bad-ass monster slayer like Dante, this game offered the chance to do the same for women. Shame only the ass got noticed.

Yes, there are negative portrayals of men of all types. Nobody is arguing that. However, the number of awesome male characters, how often the main cast is entirely male or with one token female, how often entertainment have women in it but all they do is talk about the male leads? That's the problem. As she mentioned throughout her videos, she's not saying women should be treated special. In her Women in Refrigerators video, she says she's not against female superheros dying or being killed. That's unreasonable. Her problem was the fact these deaths were often treated as simply tools to advance the male character's story, to add depth to their story at the cost of the female. Her problem was these deaths rarely showed the women dying in an honourable way, showed them fighting tooth and nail until the end. In fact, they rarely showed how the woman died in the first place! The male character would just find her already cut up in the kitchen.

There are games that are targeted at certain demographics. These are cheap tactics that the publishers come up with to try and sell a hundred thousand more copies or another hundred DVD's. Sure, some parents might object to a teenager watching porn but if in a T rated movie or game, a female's blouse splits open, they can hardly object, can they?

And about females dying to advance the male's story, the thing to notice is that the male is the main character. That guy is on the cover of the DVD, the mascot of the series. the story is revolving around him and he has the ultimate plot armor until perhaps the last few minutes. Not just women, all friends around him will die if the story needs him to go on a rampage.

And there are exceptions to this trope. If you look for good shows, you will find them. I'll give you an example from One Piece.

Spoilers till Episode 80 btw.

So there's this chick called Bellemere who finds Nami and another girl when they got orphaned. Now, Nami really didn't view her much as a mother figure even though Bellemere considered them all to be family.

Now, Nami was a very important character in the story at this time and this was a flashback and the audience needed one redeeming quality from her. So, how'd the plot advance?

So, these fishmen, basically creatures who can live on both land and in sea and are genetically much stronger than humans arrived and started thrashing the place around. They demanded cash for every living person on the island. Bellemere was an ex-marine and tried taking them down but they were genetically superior and easily (wo)man-handled her. She only had cash for two people so she let Nami and the other girl live while the fishmen shot her to death while Nami was looking.

Definitely not the best way to go. Anyways, Nami went on to learn her lesson and tried liberating the village using whatever dirty means possible and just watch the show for the rest. It's a damn good show.

The point was that all these cases are very unique. If you're saying that the author, or the designer, or the artist is sexist, just flat out say it.

Curious you listed all men. I Googled interviews for all of them and there were sizable results for each of them.

Again, nothing is stopping you from backing the projects you want to back. Rather than be disappointed people are backing Anita, you can help out the other projects you think deserve more attention and help spread word of mouth. Being disappointed in this doesn't help them. It doesn't get money or attention to these other projects.

These guys are my inspiration for doing what I'm doing. Indirectly, they've guided my on my path in life. Sakaguchi and Nomura brought two of my favorite franchises (FF and KH) and two of my favorite FF games (8 and 10) in my life. I loved that experience the first time i played those games. Blow is pushing for indie gamers to innovate instead of following the mainstream AAA titles that are more or less the same. Spector gave me Deus Ex, a game in which I saw choice and consequence everywhere. I'm sorry I don't know any female designers who made titles that affected my life and my way of living. If I did, I'd put them on the list as well.

So basically you found a lot of material by googling, right? So, unless that initial 6000 dollar fund was for building a better search engine than Google, I still don't get what kind of "research" all that money will accomplish.

For the final para -

It's like this. Imagine you have a treasure chest and it generates interest at a rate that you can afford to take out 10 gems and distribute them where ever you want. Now, you only have 10 gems but the street you're in is full of poor people. You can either give one gem each to the poorest guys there or just take all 10 gems and give them to the one who's already got a jar full of them.

My point is that people's cash flow is limited. If a guy woke up one morning and decided - "I want to give money away today" and went to Kickstarter, he could look at so many projects that haven't met their quota. Why then, would he donate money to someone who already has so much?

I thought about i for hours, racked my brains like crazy and all the clues pointed to one thing - Sympathy.

As i mentioned in the first post, her first outing was to YouTube where she got horribly trolled. I feel bad for her, I do. No woman should be called half the things that were in the comments. But, c'mon. We live on the internet. YouTube is like the badlands of the internet, right after 4chan. People there will be dicks if they don't like something and if you put something like "Women are portrayed badly in games", you're inviting all teenage boys who're sick of people talking against games, all sexist assholes, all kinds of trolls to come throw poop at you.

Kotaku covered the incident. There was a report on Escapist. For a few hours, Anita was the hot topic on the internet and everyone wanted to know about her and her project that got so much hate, just like how everyone wanted to hate on Rebecca Black even though they didn't hear the song themselves.

Now, when this thought, this dark little thought got stuck in my head, I just sat there for five minutes thinking that this woman had done the same thing that the younger siblings always do. Provoke the older brother, get smacked on the head, cry, have the parents rush over and gush all over the younger sibling while the older could do nothing but watch.

Granted, the older sibling in this case is a giant dick and probably deserves the spanking.

People don't have limitless credit cards. All that money could have and should have gone someplace better. Unless, all the 150k came from her fanbase, in which case she should just start her own religion and ask for money like that every Sunday on Kickstarter cuz it's a more effective thing than what the church does.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Many of the feminist blogs I follow have no problem with sexy women in media in and of themselves--the problem they have is how disproportionate those types of women are portrayed when compared to the variety male characters experience. The existence of great female characters does not eliminate the fact there are still problems any more than you can say just because men often come out on top that they have no problems with prejudice whatsoever as a sex. As I mentioned before, racism is still a huge problem, so I really doubt we've overcome sexism in today's world without overcoming racism at some point!

I understand that you're frustrated with the disparity and the fact people appear to be wasting their money, but what other people do with their money is their business. It's easy to write off donating by saying, "Nah, other people will do it--they got plenty". I certainly could do the same for any of the artists I commission, especially the amazing artists who do commissions for cheap because they need the money. You could just think, "Eeh, they'll get plenty of money."

Here's the art I received from one of the artists I commissioned:

It's amazing. I love all of his work and want to rub my face in it forever.

And he's broke, falling behind on his bills, and all kinds of great stuff. I could have written it off, knowing the quality of his work, and assume that people would flock to the deal. Except I got this bit of art back in May. He's still doing cheap commissions.

My point is, you can't fault people for donating, for wanting to be a part of the movement. There's no shame in asking for money. And there's no shame in her video format--she does her research and frequently references other people, gathering quotes and input from them. Having sixty people debate each other at the same time for a video sounds remarkably unfeasible. The Internet itself is essentially what you want--there are so many viewpoints and arguments from so many different sides of the coin. There are websites and blogs and fora for any and every viewpoint you can imagine. Pro-ana and pro-mia locations, otherkin support and plural system hideouts, community areas for people who hate water or own dachshunds, and even places for more unsavoury things, such as anything ever on any of the chans.

She doesn't need to expand her videos to include other people's viewpoints--they're already out there. There's a reason a lot of vloggers and bloggers run the show alone--because they want to make sure they're heard. Sharing the spotlight with someone who's already being heard and taking away the importance of the message you're trying to convey is unnecessary given the size of the Internet! In two seconds I can find a number of sites dedicated to having sex with dolphins and why it should be considered acceptable behaviour. In two seconds I can find a number of sites dedicated to how feminism is a failed movement or how it's unnecessary.

As I mentioned, I spend most of my time eyeball deep in social justice blogs, listening to people argue and fuss about how nobody does anything but whine on their blogs (ironic). Well, giving money is the first step a lot of people take. If you do the math, the $158,922 spread amongst 6968 backers is only 23 dollars per person--minus some change. I can spend that much in junk food alone. Yes, there are people who donated $500 or more--that's their choice. They decided they could take the hit. They decided it mattered that much to them. A quick look through the backers, I see a lot of people backing multiple projects, backing dozens of other projects. One person is backing over 600 of them!

People donating could see the amount that was backed to the project. It's not like anyone went in blind. Yes, people don't have endless amounts of money, but backing this project was their choice. I've given money to less scrupulous people before and I'm sure there are worse bleeding heart liberals than the likes of me out there who are just as generous with their money. I think these people gave her the money knowing there was no guarantees and gave it on good faith. If she runs off and does something unsavoury with it, then lesson learnt and her name will be tarnished. I doubt that'll happen, of course.

Honestly, for some of those people, they probably didn't think much of their donation. They just dropped twenty bucks into the tin and moved on. I certainly do that with my stealth donations to starving artists who are too proud to accept donations, haha. Every artist I overpay, even by five bucks, gets flustered and asks to return the money and I always tell them to keep it. It's not that big of a deal.

Just because other bloggers and vloggers don't ask for money on Kickstarter doesn't make them better or worse than Anita. Everyone does things differently. Every comic I follow asks for donations differently. Some just ask for donations, no extra content granted to people who give money (I remember one asking for money because her house burnt down--she's okay now). Others give their donators wallpapers or drawings as a thank you. Others yet offer donators special content--entire story arcs and comics only for them--that aren't granted to the general public. And then you have those who don't ask for donations, but sell merchandise--books, t-shirts, prints, plushies, &c. One of the comics I follow even has a Kickstarter page of their own! And, of course, there are always those who don't ask for money and dutifully post their comic without fail.

If any of these people experienced a windfall of 150k, I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for that! And none of these methods are inherently better than the other. As with Anita's Kickstarter project, the choice is there. People can cry foul all they want about artists withholding entire stories from the fanbase, but no one is being forced to do anything.

I would feel that way about any project--I can't fault people for what they do with their money, even if I think it's undeserved! That's none of my business. The only persons whose finances I am concerned with are my husbands and our future roommate, and that's mostly in the interest of making sure we don't end up homeless!

[idl12]

I will admit..before reading the novel like wall of text that is this topic..I thought of feminists, solely as those soccer moms who prevent me from seeing boobs on tv, but I think I have a better understanding now thanks to emout's posts. And I apologize for my misconception of females in the gaming industry..shows what I know I guess lol.

[† Emotional Outlet]

Haha, it's okay, idl. Apology accepted. Nobody knows everything. I only know about Homestuck. My ignorance knows no bounds!

It's okay to like boobs and hot women! I like boobs and hot women! But I also like being treated like a human being and not just decoration or a plot point, haha.

Oskar--the guy who drew the art I posted--always draws amazing women and men. Check out his work with MLP! There were some complaints about the sexualisation in the art--particularly the costumes, the fact Fluttershy would never wear such an outfit, Rainbow Dash's overused bum and chest pose--and you know what he did? Accepted the criticism and thought it over like a boss. He still draws hot people and I still stalk his blog like a creepy fangirl. He's a genuinely nice guy who talks to his fans when he gets the chance. Mind, when people were criticising his work, it wasn't a matter of "OMG Oskar is a huge sexist pig DIAF", it was "here's an example of someone using tired old tropes in their art". Most everyone said it was fantastically done and the anatomy wasn't horribly skewed. It was never about Oskar as a person or his artistic abilities--just the way he drew these particular ponies!

And that's why I'm not too worried about Anita's new set of videos. Like I said, I watched her other series and found it to be quite similar in style. It's not about the quality or worth of the game or movie or show. It's just revealing the use of these tropes. Nothing more, nothing less.

The basic definition of feminism is equality between the sexes. That's all. People who want either sex to be "in charge" or treated special aren't feminists.

Whether you're sex work positive or negative has nothing to do with it. Whether you're homo-, demi-, pan-, a-, or heterosexual has nothing to do with it. Whether you're male, female, or intersex has nothing to do with it. Whether you're otherkin or a plural system has nothing to do with it. Many people who have feminist ideals won't admit that they do because the word carries such terrible connotations for people. Consider how many people are ashamed to admit they like anime because they don't want to be treated like an incurable pervert who likes little girls!

I can understand why a lot of people have misconceptions about feminism. It's really no different than anything else--anime fans have gross misconceptions about them, atheists and theists alike have gross misconceptions about them, and, of course, men are never excluded from having gross misconceptions about them. Every day I see people spouting garbage about Islam like they know a single thing about it. Every day I see people screaming "CIS SCUM" at people who dare to disagree with them. Every day I find a new blog with a new breed of "oppressed" people that makes me wonder what I've gotten myself into. (Really, you're "transabled"? "Transethnic"? Please stop blogging.) Every day I see people act like the Middle East is just a desert wasteland full of dark-skinned savages who do nothing but brutalise women.

We're all different and unfortunately extremists tend to be the most visible while the more moderate groups tend to go on with their lives largely unnoticed.