Cruel to be Cruel

I just think that too many times, people spend their time trying to defend ideologies instead of being activists. I don't need to hear people tell me why they still need feminism and I don't need to hear people preach on about why they need the MRM. I don't want to read the billionth essay on "Men's Issues that Feminists are Working On" and I don't want to hear someone tell me again and again and again that feminists "hate men". I want to see results and I think that the only way for results to happen is if both groups swallow their pride and just find some kind of common ground. I mean, even atheists and religious folk can do it when it comes to important issues. 

Why is it that when feminists get their hands on something amazing, they have to ruin it and make it un-amazing?

So there's a Kickstarter for to make a TV show called 'Bee and Puppycat' at Frederator Studios. I guess they have been needing to use crowd funding lately, eh. Anyway this is a cool thing, except that one of my friends caught wind of this only recently and re-blogged this post promoting the kickstarter, urging people to keep funding the project for the pure and simple reason that it has a female as a main character. 

Mental illness is an ugly, ugly thing. It's degrading and dehumanizing. It is not cute or sexy. 

I'm so damn sick of people putting pictures of their scars online with captions like "I'm okay" or taking scenes from movies out of context just to further sexify and dramatize what it feels like to be depressed. 

If you want to know the true face of suicide, all you need to do is search for forensic photography of people who have died from suicide. 

It's not cute or sexy - it's grotesque and it should be. 

Not cool. 

You don't get to claim that you're some kind of expert on literary devices and not actually have a fucking clue of the origins of them beyond a wikipedia page. 

I praise women (as with anyone) for making real contributions to their chosen field, earning their stripes so to speak and rising the ranks. Anita makes a few video online, complains about "online harassment" and suddenly she gets to travel all over the world just to further complain about the "harassment" she faced. Compare and contrast with a friend of mine who is profoundly talented, has designed video games and is still (after several years) working on a small independent title (and by independent, I mean three people hunched over computers in a  bedroom). She (even as inexperienced as she is) has far more experience in the industry than Sarkeesian. Even if you just look at gamers in general, I have plenty of female friends who are hardcore gamers who invest a ridiculous amount of time and money on vidya, line up outside of game stores at midnight for a new release, buy retro consoles, etc. My freaking sister is more of a gamer than most of my male friends ffs. Why are none of my friends and family on TEDx? They're smarter than Sarkeesian and have more insight that isn't based on bullshit presuppositions. Is it because she's good looking? Because she can pretend to sound like an academic? 

It's so obvious that the only reason these game companies are hiring her is because they are desperate to widen their audience. I doubt they actually give a crap about how women are represented just as long as it makes them money. Like any creative team wants Sarkeesian to be chewing their ear off every time they make creative decisions because god forbid we stray from her criteria. 

Now I know I have no real connections to the gaming industry myself and my gaming habits are casual at best (though I have played video games fairly regularly throughout my life). But speaking as a woman who has worked in the creative industry, it's a bit of a slap in the face that people turn to her for insight on sexism in video games. People in any creative industry are constantly competing with one another, fighting tooth and nail to make an impact and stand out. It's not easy to gain a good reputation in the industry, let alone  maintaining it. So when somebody claims to be some kind of expert in games (or any other creative pursuit) you better damn well expect to be heavily scrutinized. 

So imagine there are two people at a party who get quite drunk and later have sex with one another. Neither of them know how much the other has had to drink. They  decide, after a while, to have sex with one another.

Who raped who?