How Feminism Tries to Dominate Multi-Faceted Issues

This has been something of a soapbox rant I've had stewing in my head for awhile now, and I think a situation finally came up that can allow me to articulate it in a more concise manner.

First though, a bit of prior material is a necessity before I launch into this rant -

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/the-death-of-the-gamers-and-the-women-who-killed-them/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T82CGiI9Vb4&list=UUxXUQuvoiIAlpM2osoAitjQ
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1
http://themalesofgames.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-zoe-quinn-story.html

I think this gives a nice overall of the general situation that I can start from.

Secondly, full disclosure: I fully support Sarkeesian's work on Feminist Frequency, and am a funder to the show.

So, let me see if I can first outline all the issues here:
1) Zoe Quinn's ex airing her 'dirty laundry' publicly.
2) The DMCA claim on MundaneMatt's video discussing (in part) what Quinn's ex aired.
3) The misogyny directed at Quinn and (later) Sarkeesian.
4) The lack of ethical standards within gaming journalism, highlighted by one of Quinn's relationships.
5) The emphasization of the feminist aspects of this issue in a way that neglects other aspects.
6) The double-standard of airing men's dirty laundry vs. women's.

Ok, lemme see if I can go down the list here.

1) Generally not a good thing for Quinn's ex to have done. Modern social norms differentiates the public and private spheres, and stuff isn't really supposed to cross from one to the other. Having been in a similar situation myself I can understand the motivation behind his action, but this still demonstrates a lack of good impulse control.

2) So, because of the screwball way YouTube does DMCA claims it's impossible to confirm that Quinn submitted the claim. I'm inclined to believe she did, as the dirty laundry aired by her ex indicates she's got just as much poor impulse control as her ex does, and I'm inclined to believe the information her ex posted. Generally jilted lovers don't BS, and there's enough evidence supporting his story. So I'm running under the assumption it was her.

Now, the claim was officially for using an image from the game, however I'm not inclined to believe that was the motivation for the claim, as if someone really wanted to push that angle, there'd be a LOT of DMCA claims one would have to go through. Timing also makes that motivation suspect. I'm inclined to believe that the claim was an attempt at censoring MundaneMatt due to what he was reporting on.

3) From everything I've read, everyone but those who are directing the bile they are at Quinn and Sarkeesian agree that this is really shitty stuff to do. This is BS, and the people whop are doing this need to stop. Especially airing a person's private information like that, that breaks the public/private divide (mentioned in item 1), puts people in danger, and wastes public resources (police force, specifically). If you're throwing shit around, knock it off.

4) Alright, this is the issue that keeps trying to get sidelined, which I'll discuss in item 5 (and will get to in a moment), but here's the basic jist: Yes, there's no clear evidence that there's journalistic bias because of Quinn's relationship, to focus specifically on that, however, misses a larger point: It's a rather common occurrence for there to be strong personal relationships between indie developers and indie journalists. Quinn's situation just happens to highlight that yes this DOES happen. Does it always bias journalism? No. Can it? Yes. Is there any mechanism to protect against this bias in place? No. It's that last bit that this issue is all about.

5) This is the first of these points that really gets under my skin. First, I'm a declared feminist. It's been a major part of my academic studies, and I appreciate the critical perspective on gender that a feminist analysis brings to an issue. As such it REALLY annoys me when people 'cry feminism' in the way I see here. I reference the Ars Technica article (the first link) as the most mundane example where the non-feminist issues are barely given a sentence, and dig up some of Wil Wheaton's actions and statements on the issue to see the more extreme examples.

I see this a lot, where there's a feminist aspect to an issue that tries to totally dominate the conversation. As if somehow because there's misogyny going on it somehow has to totally override any other issue present int he conversation. This is bad form, through-and-through, and no single issue should ever dominate a conversation. Everything in life is multi-faceted and it's totally legitimate for one issue to bring light on other issues, like how Quinn's dirty laundry highlights issues in game journalism. This is not a problem, so if you're telling people to stop talking about the issues in games journalism because of the shit that's being thrown at Quinn and Sarkeesian, knock it off. It may not be *your* biggest concern in the situation, but that doesn't give you the right to try and invalidate it for others.

6) This is the other one that gets on my nerves. Basic jist is that when a man's dirty laundry is aired it's seen as a social triumph. When a woman's dirty laundry is aired, it's seen as a reflection of a misogynist society. I'm not saying that it should be lauded or condemned when this stuff happens, just that there's a clear gender divide here.

Now, some interesting observations looking at this rather holistically:

a) First, the public/private divide. Part of the feminist argument supporting Quinn is how this stuff should have never come to light. This is ironic because one of the core feminist concepts is "the personal is political," which makes sense if your a woman in a society that 'privatizes' women's abuse at home. It's an argument that legitimizes bringing what has been historically viewed as a private matter into the public sphere and being addressed.

Now we have a situation that's the inverse of what the saying was designed for here. We have a woman acting in an abusive (will dig into this definition in a moment, bear with me) nature in a private context, and a man who's turning it into a public issue. This is NOT something that feminist should be opposed to, quite the contrary it's vital that the private light gets a public spectacle, otherwise harm that is happening in one's private sphere is ignored. I would posit that what Quinn's ex did is perfectly in-line with feminism, and should not be decried.

I do feel the need to remind people that feminism is NOT about protecting women, but understanding the power imbalances between men and women, with an eye on re-balancing them. It's horribly inappropriate to take a feminist stance and claim that Quinn's ex shouldn't have aired her indiscretions, as doing so is perfectly in-line with "the personal is political."

The challenge comes in with where do we draw the line in airing people's private lives. I believe most would argue that the line should be drawn around harm. If someone's being harmed, then the private should be public. What defines harm though? It's easy to make an argument that if someone's getting physically beaten in their relationship, that would qualify as harm. What about psychological harm though? There's plenty of evidence supporting that psychological harm is just as damaging, and likely moreso, than physical harm. Yet there's much less consensus that psychological harm is a 'valid' form of harm.

Personally, I'm in favor of getting rid of the entire concept of privacy, as privacy ultimately only serves individual's delusions of security, and allows them to skirt accountability for their actions. My personal opinion though.

b) I seriously think people need to stop listening to the loudest voices in the room. Every side here is responding to the minority of idiots who are screaming their heads off for attention. Gamers aren't total misogynists. Yes, our medium of choice is replete with misogynist themes, so is pretty much every other medium. To claim gamers are inherently misogynist would require us to claim that everyone is misogynistic, which goes well beyond absurdity.

Also, and I think MundaneMatt is a good example of this, by and large people aren't trying to 'quiet' the issue about gaming journalism bias. Yes, there are some who are, but most people latch on to the perspective they're first exposed to the issue from, and assume other perspectives are 'just trying to distract' from it. It's a psychological bias problem, and I know I suffered from it when I first heard this story. MundaneMatt's 'rallying cry' arguments highlight the same degree of idiots on the feminist side of the argument as feminist do of misogynistic gamers.

Now, to be fair, everyone's been fairly decent in recognizing that they're actually addressing a minority of the populations they're targeting, however their analysis tends to stop there. Simply stating that you're addressing a minority isn't enough, the perspective of the majority (or other groups if it's more divisive) needs to be brought in to really highlight that you're talking about a minority. Otherwise people *will* psychologically latch on to the example you provide, and externalize that to the larger group as a whole. In much the same way, the game journalism arguments are being just as blind as the feminist arguments.

So, at this point I've started to run out of steam in soap-boxing on this. There's one more point I'd like to cover though, and that's about what ethical standards game journalists should be held to. Frankly I'm not sure. I do see bias as a huge problem. Yes, people go into an article understanding that the biases of the individual will be reflected in the article, however I doubt that readers fully understand the scope of those biases. TotalBiscut has some very good discussions about journalistic integrity that I think are a great starting point to figuring out what game journalism ethics should be.

Ok, there goes my steam.

Until next time folks.

- Jason