sundin13 said:
Sounds like you are the one who hasn't watched her videos. She blatantly misrepresents games, cherry picks to the nth degree and I would say that she lies at times. Take her discussion of Hitman for instance: What she says - In Hitman, you as the player are encouraged to murder innocent females and get perverse pleasure out of watching the ragdoll physics as you move their body around. This is proof that the game encourages the sexual repression of women and encourages violence against women What actually happens - In 2/7ths of 1/20 missions, you have the capability to kill innocent females, as you would be able to do with any innocent male character in the game. In no way does the game encourage players to kill or even interact with these women, and in fact, it actively discourages this behaviour by inflicting rather strict point penalties if you were to kill them. The goal of the level in question is to sneak by them without being noticed, and it is even possible to go a completely different route and never encounter this situation in the first place. Additionally, it is worth noting that there is virtually no reputable evidence that proves that actions in video games are tied to actions in real life. This was a large debate a few years back (the whole "video game violence causes real world violence") and the overall conclusion by the scientific community is that these accusation hold little to no water. |
I'm sure that sane people don't go out and rape someone because they've seen it in a videogame, just like they don't think it's okay to shoot people because they've played a shooter. I think the problem is that many people don't realize that their behaviour (by that I don't mean sexual violence, simply the way they perceive or treat women) isn't okay. They often don't question these things because they think that's normal and therefore promote harmful, sexist behaviour, perhaps even without any "evil" intentions. On the other hand, most people are well aware of the fact that murder isn't okay, which is why I do find it very silly when people say a person shot someone because videogames.
So, people who play games in which women are treated in a sexist way, might not realize that this is the case and therefore potentially behave like that in real life. Which is why I think it's important that games, movies, whatever, exist that don't contain sexism and portray women in a different way, because that might help people to see things differently, or question certain things.
Anita points out in one of her videos how that sort of sexism does have negative impact for both women and men, and also provides links and resources to back up her claims.
About hitman: What you're referring to is that 2-part "women as background decoration" video, if I remember correctly, so I'm not sure what I can say about this topic that she hasn't already.
