Comments Aren’t Disabled: Here’s What People Are Saying About Tropes vs Women

This is going to be awful to read. If you’re sensitive to anything within the scope of harassment toward women, be aware most of this will be agonising.

Anita Sarkeesian is known for her video series Feminist Frequency. We’ve all heard of it because it has been essentially impossible to not. She attempted to get funding for a video series based around female representation in games called Tropes vs Women. The Kickstarter asked for $6,000 to receive funding. It got several times this amount, finishing at a total of $158,922.

The first video was released yesterday. It’s an introductory piece to the idea of female representation as an object that has to be saved as a way of creating character growth for a typically male hero. It’s a very simple but very well researched discussion starter that needed to exist.

When this series was first announced she received assorted threats of every variety. It was awful. This has lead to her disabling the comments on the video on youtube, but this doesn’t remove user’s abilities to talk about it elsewhere.

We’ve decided to collect together many of these views for posterity and a suggestion of why she might have been wise to do so. This will appear very one-sided, some websites absolutely have more comments than others. These are not even the entirity of those that can be found on these sites, but they are the worst.

N4G: 

2pacalypsenow:

Dumb feminists. 

women like men to be protective of them its normal and not sexists,And its not a bad thing Men and women are 2 different things stop trying to be treated equal! 

Funny when a man is tortured and dismembered everyone is ok but if that happens to a woman all hell breaks loose, Women just want to be treated equal when it benefits them. 

Men will always be the stronger Dominant one. And that will never change,That's why when watching a scary movie the girl curls up to the guy not the other way around 

yeahokchief:

I feel sorry for the guy who gets stuck with this one day. She's probably going to die alone. 

She doesn't even know what she's talking about. She says Peach was only a playable character in Mario Bros 2. WRONG. She was a playable character in Super Mario RPG, EVERY SINGLE Mario Kart, Mario Party and Super Smash Bros.

ShaunCameron:

I hate the white knights and nice guys that defend them to death even more. After all if it wasn't for them, feminism would have fell flat on its face. 

The irony of feminism is that for all the talk of liberation and empowerment, it's dependent on men to make such things a possibility let alone enforce it. Plus, the only thing feminism done is make it easier for women to get rewarded for doing nothing besides merely being born with TA&V and just existing, living vicariously through men's labor and accomplishments. And this Anita chick is exhibit A.

SageHonor:

I hate feminist

Destructoid:

RealWorld:

Fuck this stupid bitch purposefully trying to exploit everything as sexism just to make a career. No different than Sharpton or Jesse Jackson exploiting racism. Shit's pathetic.

Begaria:

Here is my super smart, factual contribution to the tropes of women in video games:

*ah hem*

...

I'd totally bang that chick in the video.

BrainWasherAttendent:

Feminism would be a joke if it wasn't so damaging to the human race. It has a hatred for the male AND the female. It is designed to destroy what little is left of humanity.

Misandry is widely accepted in western culture now, and it will lead to further enslavement by the powers that are all too happy to dupe people into believing any bullshit they want, as long as it keep you stupid.

People don't recognize poison when they taste it, because poison can be sweet going down. The ruthlessness behind the feminist agenda is more bloodthirsty than any supposed male conspiracy ever could be.

You say men rule the world? Bullshit. Everything is geared towards the female. They LOVE to be victims and to be "saved" by men. They just lie and say they don't want that, because it gives them even more leverage! Hahhahahaa.

LOL. nobody knows shit about anything. what a bunch of chumps.

Zyzxx:

STOP. FEEDING. THE. SHE-TROLLS.

RoyBatti:

What i hate the most about feminists of her ilk is that they act like women never EVER sexualize, objectify, degrade or use men in any shape or form like they're all a bunch of fucking saints. Or when women do behave like this it's entirely the fault of the male dominant society they live in. Wake the fuck up.

There's room for well educated feminists to present such topics and i'll be supportive of them. This lady is mostly being counter-productive.

JetSetRadioForever:

I think comments have been disabled is that she already made her money off the abuse through the kickstarter and has no need to facilitate them anymore and because she is unable to have a debate on her "findings" for fear people will tear them to shreds under scrutiny and leave her looking dumb.

Tin Man:

No, comments have been disabled because scam artists don't like being called scam artists, and she manipulated her comment section anyway in order to drive her already substantial profits through the roof.

I don't know many victims of 'online abuse' that walk away with over 160 THOUSAND DOLLARS in other peoples money as a result of it, never even mind what she got for the TED talk and interviews and shit. And speaking of that, the result is basically the same calibre of stuff she was putting out years ago.

I almost have to applaud the level of balls it takes to so confidently pull off the con and get away with it. I respect that.

D Sane:

I'm choosing not to watch so that I won't inadvertently reinforce this behavior any more. Gender roles and sexism in video games is a subject that has been discussed to death by people who are probably more highly qualified than this woman. It's just not interesting any more.

Fossegrim:

I hate seeing her stupid ass face in all her videos...

ElektroDragon:

Play the new Tomb Raider and fuck off, Anita. Also, you are wearing pink and have ridiculous earrings. Big no no for an ultraliberal feminazi like yourself.

Memo:

I feel this article is entirely bias. She should at least have a comparative to justify her arguments, otherwise shes rambling on about a list of games that make her upset about her feminist desires.

I have nothing against peoples opinions, or what they believe(right or wrong). Feminism is like religion, Unless you worship them you probably don't care. Just because a game is made in a manner that she did not like, she wasn't given any sort of right to criticize something. After all, there are games where female protagonist show their strength. Also, unless the game directly says or demonstrates to you that women are inferior, it was probably never intended to be that way, so why make it seem like the intent of the game was to degrade women.

This is the problem with feminist, shes not pushing to be equal, shes making it seem like shes a victim of some sort of sexist crime. She needs to do research on equality and inequality, rather then placing things into facts she creates to make things work.

Bling Pringles:

Women are basically big rape buckets. I say all women should be forced to be naked constantly, to better receive all the rapes they so rightly deserve.

Polygon:

Samuel L. Jackson:

Not everything in this world can be equal between genders at every given moment. That’s part of why the world is so interesting.

Joystiq:

WitnessToChange:

She really doesn't like men does she.

Paul'Chinny'Chinn:

This is news?

JoeAdanac:

Time for her to leave the basement and get a real job that's not based on criticizing men all day

pinkysbrein:

Obvious troll is obvious.

PaizuriJones:

She disables comments so people aren't allowed to give their opinion? That seems a little one sided.

Honestly, I thought this lady disappeared after she made a fool of herself in her Bayonetta video. (That she removed)

actripxl:

Joystiq, if I wanted these whinny articles I'd go to Kotaku.

Kotaku:

Timstuff:

People made her $160 grand richer because they felt sorry for her.

Cpt-Intense:

Well excuse me princess! its just a game. There are women who need help in reality, you should loosen up and enjoy life, and count urself lucky ur not being beaten/raped by some big ass hairy mofo.

GO WOMEN!!!

PreyaticIntent:

At least the chick is hot.

Cosmic_F:

She has a purdy mouth.

Rakugaki Showtime:

I hate everything about this woman, but mostly her face...well that and her selective reasoning. She's sitting there wearing gobs of makeup and hoop earrings but contrasts that by trying to be all frumpy with her hair and guy shirt.

And this video sucks more than her last ones, and reeks of "oh lawd, poor womans being picked on in games". Remind me again why people ever gave her money to do this?

IanTROLL:

I told my computer to shut the fuck up while watching this. It hurts so much.

MrRoboto456:

I'm lost...If my girlfriend gets captured am I an asshole for saving her?

MWarnerM:

Ugh. Send this whiny, myopic bullshit over to Jezebel, please.

XXXXXX8:

I hate her. I don't even want to watch this. She is stupid.

-

We hope it's apparent that Anita's decision to disable comments was correct, given the current state of discussion. If we were to create an environment where comments like the above weren't seen as acceptable her actions might warrant a different reaction.

The internet is a terrible place. It shouldn't be. We can fix this and we absolutely have to.