This is a slightly off topic question, but what if the book/movie/game/whatever is just about males or some topic related to males? Is it still sexist?

Of course not, unless it is for other reasons.
Try not to get caught up in specifics and not see the forest for the trees...

Oh I was just curious about how rigid it is. I see your overall point.

On a separate note, it appears Feminist Frequency is tackling both sexism and violence. It appears that Anita is covering sexism and McIntosh is covering violence. McIntosh tweeted this yesterday:

The positive reviews of Hotline Miami 2 are depressing & continue the cavalier celebration of violence that infects games writing & culture.

And he's free to hold and express this opinion. I don't particularly share in it, but hey, that's a free society.

Since it cuts both ways, I'll point out though that he's missing the same point here that so many of Sarkeesian's critics do: Like it is not her role to comment on the design qualities or funness of games, it is not the role of a game reviewer to comment on whether its violent content is a cavalier celebration of violence -- its the role of a game reviewer to comment on those design qualities and funness that Sarkeesian is free to ignore.

And someone already pointed out that a "sexist game" is sexism. A violent game is not violence.

How is that the case? Violence is games is violence in games. Sexism in games is sexism in games.

Games are part of actual, real-life culture -- increasingly moreso. I think everyone here would agree with that statement. Therefore both violence and sexism in games is violence in sexism in culture. The question then becomes how does violence or sexism leap from culture (how we perceive the world around us) to society (how we interact with the world around us). More on this thread in the next response.

No matter how much violence is in a book, it's never actually going to attack me (not counting paper cuts).

No matter how much sexism is in a book, it's never actually going to objectify you.

rhetorical -- the book itself does not have to commit the act (to be fair, this is rhetoric in both counts).

The difference though, is that violence is a conscious, physical act that comes into being by the commission of the act against the flesh and blood of a person. Sexism and other isms, though, are often unconscious, immaterial (psychological, spiritual, political) acts that come into being almost by their expression alone. Its true that in either case of violence or sexism there is a final step which visits its consequence on an individual -- but there is a difference still: as a conscious act you must in some way overcome your intellect in order to commit violence against someone, but as an unconscious act, your intellect is no barrier for you to commit sexism and other isms against someone -- you have to first elevate the way you perceive and process sexism and other isms to an intellectual level before you will reflect upon it in the same way you would reflect upon violence before committing it.

Societies laws and generally-accepted standards of conduct send a clear message that real-life violence is something to weighed with care, but this is not so clearly the case with sexism and other isms -- those who engage in it, consciously or unconsciously, are repeatedly defended and given benefit of the doubt and often see reward perhaps not because of their sexism, but certainly in spite of it. Thus, there is little societal incentive for people to reflect upon the ways they perpetuate sexism and other isms.

If a book fails the Bechdel test in a major way -- say there's 10 majorly fleshed out male characters, but females only appear as side-characters -- then that's probably unintentionally a byproduct of the author's unconscious sexism, and arguably could be called a sexist book.

I don't think a book would unintentionally flesh out characters without realizing they're male/female.

That's not the point -- the point is that the author might have subconsciously ignored the female characters. Our culture tends to place a higher value on the words and achievements of men than of woman. Thus, if you want the words and achievements of characters in your fiction to hold weight and command attention, you might subconsciously assign them to a male character rather than a female one. Then this becomes part of the feedback loop, which echoes again that its men who do important things, and women who, when their jealousies or other negative traits aren't subverting those men, play a supporting role at best.

There was a study I read recently about how people rated their college instructors -- and how female teachers were perceived as less competent and given more critical feedback that often cited commonly-held negative personality traits about women, but male teachers were perceived as more competent and given praising feedback that often cited commonly-held positive personality traits about men. In short, the male teachers were perceived as competent, organized, tough, and fair, while the female teachers were perceived as less competent, disorganized, overbearing, and as playing favorites. So in this study, if I recall details correctly, they conducted online courses where the students never met the teacher in person, but made it appear that the female teacher was actually male, and the male teacher was actually female -- the result was that they still gave feedback in a way that matched the gender they were told -- the male teacher was perceived as less-competent because it was believed he was a female. They also conducted the same experiment with just one teacher, only they were presented as male to half the students, and female to the other half -- and again, feedback on the "male" teacher was positive, and feedback of the "female" teacher was less positive.

That's important -- because it says that our subconsciousness don't just skew in favor of men, but they also skew against women; all things being equal, we assign a positive light to interacting with men, and negative light to interacting with women. That's a double whammy, because we apparently don't even perceive women in a neutral light (this all goes for racism and other isms too). Men get to swim with the current, while women have to swim against it.

If you grow up watching TV and movies where in half of them, the major characters are entirely male, isn't it possible that that's going to instill some form of unconscious bias in you, where you expect (without being aware of it) that protagonists are usually men? And that if you then write a story, you'll most likely, without even thinking about it, write a male protagonist... and you'll be part of that feedback loop where culture propagates and preserves itself.
Is that really so controversial an idea, and hard to even entertain as a possibility?

I think a core piece that you left out is that the media you consumed as you were growing up made male protagonists common because you were watching media that was aimed at you (a young man), and they wanted you to relate more with the characters.. Conversely, there's other media aimed at females that you probably haven't watched, simply because it wasn't aimed at you, where the main characters are mostly female. Of course, no one's clamoring that those are Misandrist.

I've said enough about this point of representation and lack of representation above, so I won't repeat, but this question prompts me to make another point.

You or I might have been well-served by the abundance and variety of male media and male role-models, fictional or otherwise -- women did not entirely lack the equivalent with respect to activities and personalities more stereotypically-aligned to their interests, but certainly did not have the abundance or variety that boys enjoyed. Its ok for there to be things for boys and some different thing for girls (or along any other axis you can think of), that's not inherently sexist. It does start to tread on sexism, though, when it is so overspecialized for one demographic that it becomes actively uncomfortable for those who don't typify the demographic. Since we always had abundance and variety, its hard for males to appreciate when something goes for want -- if we didn't identify with one particular work of media or role-model, we usually had several more to choose from -- If you didn't like Hulk Hogan, maybe you liked Macho Man or Ultimate Warrior instead. For women that was not their experience -- if she she didn't like tennis, who else would a young female athlete have had to look up to 15 years ago? The WNBA didn't come into being until I was a teenager, and in early days was at best an afterthought for any media sports coverage, and more-often mocked and made to be the butt of jokes. There have always been other options for athletic female role models if you looked hard enough, but even today they are fewer and further between than for males.

This leads to why its especially important for men to not be so defensive of our sprawling, multi-million dollar clubhouse -- the women's clubhouse is rather small by comparison. And women aren't there to tear up the place and take over, they just want to participate. Society would be better for it if we just shared the same clubhouse and made room to include everyone, where Suzy can play with trucks and Billy can play house if they like. It doesn't mean that men can't keep doing things that women might likely find unappealing, or vice versa, and all it takes is being a little more civil about the interests we share, or at the very least to stop being so obstinate in denying that there are any problems to speak of. Sexism keeps the clubhouses separate.

And someone already pointed out that a "sexist game" is sexism. A violent game is not violence.

How is that the case? Violence in games is violence in games. Sexism in games is sexism in games.

You can have characters being violent in a game, but the game itself isn't committing acts of violence. It is a game portraying violence.
You can have characters being sexist or racist in a game, but the game itself isn't necessarily being sexist or racist for portraying sexism or racism people. The portrayal of sexism or racism isn't what (most) people are arguing about.

Many movies have racist characters in them, or portray racism. Most movies aren't overtly racist, except to the extent they perpetuate stereotypes. It's the difference between a character within a movie being racist, and the creators of the movie letting their unintentional racism inform the design of the movie.

That's what people mean when they say games aren't themselves violent. They can encourage violence (this is debatable, but I think it's definitely possible that some games might reinforce already existing violent behavior), but unless a game is deliberately rigged to explode and harm your physical body, games can't directly commit real-life violent acts. They can still portray violent acts.

However, since both sexism and racism can be committed through communication and expression, a game can both portray violence and sexism and racism (and all of that is fine!), but can also, through how it was designed, be itself sexist or racist (which isn't fine).

To give an example, Wolverine in X-men objectifying women is an example of a character within a show being sexist. That's fine. That's who they are trying to portray.
But the when the designers of X-men themselves through their work sexualize or stereotype the female characters, that makes X-men itself sexist (not a character within X-men).

There are absolutely works of art that are racist (but that doesn't mean they don't have value in other unrelated ways), and there are also works of art that portray racism (but that doesn't mean they aren't flawed in different areas). And some works that are both anti-racism in one way, but are racist in other ways.

And racism/sexism is a gradient not a boolean value. We're saying, let's raise our standards as designers/writers to (A) not isolate potential parts of our customer base (B) not perpetuate undesirable (potential) real-world effects, and as a side effect of not letting ourselves as easily reach for the stereotypes every time, we'll have to work a little harder creatively but I think greater diversity in characters will result. Diversity not for diversity's own sake, but for furthering the value/entertainment of our medium (games) - we'll have new ideas, new characters, new tropes. So there are three potential benefits, two of which are potentially economically beneficial to developers.

When you're making a game, and you have alot of areas created, good games cut out the areas that don't work well and aren't up to the same level of quality.

We apply this not just to content like art, music, and level designs, but we also apply this to our writing. The parts of our works that are of value, let's keep those. The parts that don't, let's prune them out or reduce them. Not censor or ban them but, as we grow as designers, reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.

Some of what people are discussing is a call to reduce certain things: Don't rely (as heavily) on the stereotypes that make part of your userbase feel uncomfortable and belittled, and that (potentially) reinforces real-world negative aspects of our culture.

And some of it is a call to increase certain things: Have more female protagonists and more well-written female characters. This can be done poorly as well - cramming female characters in ham-fisted ways into games would be detrimental to the medium. The overall idea, though, is sound - let's see if, as creators, we can be more creative. Let's see if, as designers, we can create works of higher quality. Let's hone our skills and prune our works.

The issue of females in games is not the only area we discuss improvements about. We've also discussed several times the issue of violence in games, not for cultural or politically correct reasons, but as artistic challenges to see what other forms of gameplay we can come up with, and then using those additional forms of gameplay to enhance the entire spectrum of games - first person shooters and fantasy sword-combat games included - to create more enjoyable and varied experiences. Without designers thinking like this, games like Metal Gear Solid or Deus Ex - both of which include violence but offer other means of overcoming challenges - wouldn't exist. But because of discussions about what we rely on in gameplay, we can think about alternatives to enhance and broaden gameplay. Without discussions about what we rely on when writing plots and characters, we can think about other possibilities to enhance and broaden our character writing.

This leads to why its especially important for men to not be so defensive of our sprawling, multi-million dollar clubhouse -- the women's clubhouse is rather small by comparison. And women aren't there to tear up the place and take over, they just want to participate. Society would be better for it if we just shared the same clubhouse and made room to include everyone.

It's not just men. The NotYourShield hashtag, for example, is gamers who have said they are perfectly happy with how games are right now and just want to be able to enjoy their games, but when they voice their opinion they are told by Sarkeesian, Alexander, and the others in the opposition (via Twitter) that they have simply internalized misogyny or aren't thinking for themselves. This is usually right before they call them a sockpuppet and block them [even if the person has posted pics of them holding signs to prove they are a real person].

There is no clear view of GamerGate as you get different stories depending on who you ask, but NotYourShield is very clear. http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Hashtag-Shows-Multi-Cultural-Support-GamerGate-67119.html

This is why I have serious issues taking this call for change serious seeing that the ones doing the call are showing they are just as volatile as those they condemn.

I won't even get into the debacle that is Tim Schafer and GDC2015.

I don't know what to think because looking at it so far it appears that it is more the critics demanding change and gamers saying they are content with how games are and just simply want to enjoy playing games.

This is why I have serious issues taking this call for change serious seeing that the ones doing the call are showing they are just as volatile as those they condemn.

It is a fallacy to conclude that a call for change (or any statement, really) is illegitimate based on perceived ill character traits on the part of the ones calling for the change. Therefore, your "serious issues" are meaningless. Consider the arguments, not the characters making them.

Ravyne, on 13 Mar 2015 - 12:31 PM, said:

This leads to why its especially important for men to not be so defensive of our sprawling, multi-million dollar clubhouse -- the women's clubhouse is rather small by comparison. And women aren't there to tear up the place and take over, they just want to participate. Society would be better for it if we just shared the same clubhouse and made room to include everyone.
It's not just men. The NotYourShield hashtag, for example, is gamers who have said they are perfectly happy with how games are right now and just want to be able to enjoy their games, but when they voice their opinion they are told by Sarkeesian, Alexander, and the others in the opposition (via Twitter) that they have simply internalized misogyny or aren't thinking for themselves. This is usually right before they call them a sockpuppet and block them [even if the person has posted pics of them holding signs to prove they are a real person].

Of course there is no singular opinion.

But just because there are women in NotYourShield, does not mean there isn't a problem. If a small minority of black people came out and said that, in their experience, racism is an overblown issue, that does't suddenly wipe away the experiences of the majority of black people. Nor for homosexuals. Nor for minority religious sects. Ergo, nor for women.

What it might mean, instead, is that the challenges these minority voices face are so institutionalized and pervasive, that they either have come to know and accept their place, or they have decided that they have to go along to get along. Importantly, that place that they find themselves is not usually entirely as they would define it for themselves, free of outside influence. Make no mistake that it they started expressing an opinion that threatened the party line of NotYourShield, they would quickly find themselves rebuked, disowned, or perhaps targeted themselves.

Its natural to not want to be painted as a victim in someone else's proxy war, or if your experiences are different, to give voice to your perspective, and that in itself is a meaningful contribution to the conversation. Where NotYourShield goes wrong, IMO, is in how the movement is used, even if not intended to be, to invalidate those contradictory experiences that are likely to the experience of most members of the minorities. They don't simply say "My personal experience is different, so kindly don't use me as a shield please." they say instead "My personal experience as a member of this minority is different, so kindly don't use the minority status to which I belong, please." Do you see the difference? That I am a white, heterosexual, cis-genered male doesn't mean I have any authority to broadly represent the positions of white, heterosexual, cis-gendered males in any context, nor the authority to object to the real experiences of others in overlapping groups -- not the least of which reasons is the concept of intersectionallism (defined by way of example, intersectionalism is the concept that only a black woman knows what its like to a black woman -- you can't define the experience of being a black woman by poling black men and white women, and then amalgamating and extrapolating their experiences). That is--which should be obvious--the experiences of a female gamer who has not been targeted by harassment or who does not see it as a big deal are not the experiences of a female gamer who has been targeted by harassment and does think its a big deal. They can both be real experiences that coexist--one's existence does not disprove or discount the other--but neither experience gives authority to speak on the other. As Oberon points out, you must consider the arguments on the merits of the argument alone.

Imagine this -- you work the 911 hotline, one day you recieve a call "Hello, 911? I'd like to report heavy smoke coming from 123 main street. I think there's probably a fire." and concurrently another call comes in "Hello, 911? I just want to be a good citizen and let you know that the smoke coming from 123 main street isn't something you should be concerned about, in fact, I can barely see it from my position, I hesitate to even call it smoke. Anyways, its my neighbor you see, across the street and two houses over, and I've never known any of my neighbors to burn their houses down." Firemen might arrive and be relieved to find that there is, in fact, no fire -- but it would be irresponsible to dismiss the report of fire merely because the other report exists.

A reminder that we're talking about criticisms of games, not criticisms of people. We're not here to discuss the legitimacy or not of NotYourShield.

I don't know what to think because looking at it so far it appears that it is more the critics demanding change and gamers saying they are content with how games are and just simply want to enjoy playing games.

BHX: Anita seems to be a professional victim. Simply by mentioning her you're furthering her cause, and most of your posts mention her.

You can have characters being violent in a game, but the game itself isn't committing acts of violence. It is a game portraying violence.
You can have characters being sexist or racist in a game, but the game itself isn't necessarily being sexist or racist for portraying sexism or racism people. The portrayal of sexism or racism isn't what (most) people are arguing about.

Ah, ok. In that case I disagree, I think any media being sexist/offensive isn't a big deal, and the free market will adapt to phase out offensive content.

How do you think the "free market" is going to do that, if not by its constituent customers and service providers making it a "big deal" by discussing what is and is not objectionable, as we are doing here? ;)

I don't believe in the concept of unintentional racism in commercial works. I think characters are all designed for a market.

All characters in all commercial works ever? That's a pretty strong claim. Can you demonstrate its soundness?