Lemme get something off my chest. My problem with modern feminism isn’t misandrists. It isn’t the petty issues. These are both problems…well, no not even that. They’re symptoms of a much bigger problem. Which is this: modern feminism is owned and run by the most privileged in our society. It’s very rare for a woman with a less privileged background to make a name for herself in feminism. Look at Malala Yousafzai - this young woman almost lost her life because she supported what at it’s core is a feminist cause, the right for girls to get an education in her country. But how often do you see the name feminist attached to her? She never calls herself a feminist, and most others don’t call her a feminist either. I’ve never seen the title attached to her. We praise her good work, but for some reason, never attach the idea of it being a woman’s issue to her - it’s seen in more general terms. Because Malala is a Middle Eastern woman, with dark skin, from a family who is probably well off in her own country but would be considered middle class at best in the Western world, and whose climb to fame was marked not by her rhetoric but her bravery. In my mind, Malala is a feminist. A fantastic feminist. Her father, Ziauddin, is a fantastic feminist. Both of them risk their lives on the daily against incredibly violent extremist groups for the right for girls to be educated. But to modern feminists, they are not. At least, not outwardly.
Who is an outward feminist? Almost exclusively wealthy, college-educated, normally attractive white women who have probably not suffered a true days assault in their lives or if they have, it was something extraordinarily petty. Like, “manspreading” petty. And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that even these women aren’t the real face of modern feminism. No no - they’re just the pretty monikers who spread this gospel. The people running the show appear to be the most privileged group in Western nations - white, rich, cis, straight, men. The exact people these feminists so often decry, so often are the ones truly running the show. Nothing has opened my eyes to this more than GamerGate.
GamerGate is a movement about journalistic integrity (and don’t you dare let anyone try and tell you otherwise because it is absolutely not better than insisting feminism is nothing but a bunch of misandrists based on the handful of loud, annoying and toxic assholes who paint it that way). I believe very much in this, not just in the realm of gaming but in journalism in general. I think GamerGate is a start - it might seem minor but it grows, as you teach people to be more critical of journalism directly involving their interests, they become more critical of journalism in general. The same journalism which so often paints over travesties like Ferguson, which resorts to fluff even when there are important things to talk about, which demonstrates enormous bias in how they talk about race (the “black criminals are thugs but white criminals are romanticized” bullshit). Teach people to be critical of that. Yet it has been decried, and people have taken every opportunity to make it about misogyny, based only on, again, the loud assholes. Sometimes, not even the loud assholes - they go out of their way to find people to use as a front.
Who is at the forefront of this mislabeling? Almost exclusively wealthy, college-educated, normally attractive white women etc. And in the background? Wealthy, college-educated, normally attractive white, cis, straight men. The likes of Jonathan McIntosh, Anita Sarkeesian, Phil Fish, and Brianna Wu. People who capitalize on victimization, who make thousands on rhetoric, who have monetized oppression, who so desperately want you to believe the world is broken and who most important, don’t want to do anything about it. Because if they did something to help the problem, the problem might go away. And there goes their jobs.
Here’s the thing about privilege: there is many different kinds. And I have always believed one of the most divisive kind is wealth privilege. There is nothing which separates people more in this day and age than their wealth. People of color, women, LGBT individuals - they all may still have slightly lower privilege, but a wealthy woman has a lot more privilege than a poor man. An upper class person is going to, by default, have a lot more privilege than a lower class person, regardless of their race or sexuality or gender or religion, or any other factor. Those factors can influence wealth, but let’s talk about the wealth. And the thing about wealth: people with a lot of it tend to run on different rules. Wealth gives you a great deal of control over your surroundings and over your life, so wealthy people tend to be a great deal less offended by horrible tragedies in the world UNTIL it directly effects them in some way. Millions of women being forced into sex slavery internationally? Whatever. Man spreads his legs slightly on the subway which minorly inconveniences you on the way to your penthouse? OMG THIS IS SEXISM. That kind of thing.
So when the people calling the shots for your movement are all incredibly wealthy, and no poor woman is ever going to be labeled a feminist, then the concentration becomes more and more watered down and less and less useful. The thing about GamerGate: it includes a lot of women and no central figure, and the majority of the people behind it are between poor and middle class. This is why GamerGate has actually done more for women, in general, than it’s main detractors. Despite the fact that their detractors have enormous amounts of wealth. In fact, GamerGate raised over $70,000 to go towards projects supporting and encouraging women to go into gaming, and over $45,000 in addition to other causes such as Unicef, Child’s Play, and Extra Life.
How much has Anita Sarkeesian donated? Or Brianna Wu? By all accounts: not a thing. Anita would probably count her own Feminist Frequency as a charity, even though I can’t identify a single thing Feminist Frequency has done besides put out condescending videos occasionally. Whatsmore, Feminist Frequency has absolutely no transparency in its spending practices - it is impossible to tell how much of her donations actually go to videos, and how much go in her pocket. When other charities do this, it’s a national outcry. When she does it, it’s ignored. Whatsmore, the videos themselves claim to be educational, but frequently feature stolen Let’s Play footage, misrepresent the games within, and at one point even stole art (which she later took down). Nothing she talks about in these videos are new information, nor presenting in a way that would be any more educational than any of the other discussions of video games and female representation in media, yet she receives thousands for it.
Brianna Wu originally received $200,000 from her very wealthy parents to start her company, GiantSpaceKat. She then received $400,000 from Kickstarter to create her game, Revolution 60, and another $5,000 to port the game to PC. Both games cost money, with the iOS game costing $6 and the PC game planned to cost $10. She also receives $13,000 a month on her Patreon. Despite being handed money to make things and still charging fairly high amounts ($6 is fairly expensive for an iOS game) it is not apparent that Brianna Wu has donated any of this money to any reputable charity.
The same goes for the vast majority of people representing the anti-GamerGate side and feminism in general - some feminists donate money, but most donate to their own charities (a la Beyonce) or donate in fairly small amounts. Generally speaking, these are women who would much rather you give their money to them, than to anyone else.
The problem is: this doesn’t help women. It’s just talking. The vast majority of modern feminists do absolutely nothing to actually empower, help, or support women. They just talk. And a great deal of that talking isn’t empowerment, but victimization. Indeed Anita and Brianna seem to have made an industry on victimization. A majority of their Twitter accounts consist of complaining about harassment, or berating GamerGate. Another smaller portion consists of giving neutral updates. And almost none of them consist of, well, women in general. No talking about women. No empowerment of women. Mostly complaining about men and victimization.
Now does this empower women? Well, as a woman, I have to say no. I don’t feel empowered by these types of things. Because these types of things don’t exist to empower women by to inject them with fear - because there is absolutely no way to better control a populace than with fear. How better do you keep women afraid and in their little corners? By making them scares.
Remember, Anita and Brianna have a VESTED INTEREST in keeping other women out of gaming - they want a monopoly on it. Because then they can complain more about “where are all the women” while still marketing their own products based exclusively on their genders. “Buy this, because it was made by a woman” was essentially Revolution 60’s catchphrase. They don’t want empowered women. The very powerful men behind them don’t want empowered women. But they’re going to pretend like that is their goal, for the same reason politicians claim it’s their goal - because obviously you aren’t going to be forward about that.
Recently the Anti Defamation League introduced a “curriculum” which essentially makes children talk about “sexism in games” which wouldn’t be so bad if it were not so indepth and so seemingly designed to teach men “You’re terrible because this happened” and teach women “You can never get into this industry because they hate you there”. Remember ShirtGate? How so many “feminists” claimed this was going to scare women out of the industry, when in reality what was going to scare them more than anything was the constant bellowing rhetoric about how women can’t go into STEM because they’ll be scared away by “evil misogynists”?
Why is it instead of pushing things like this, feminists don’t implement a curriculum teaching kids, ALL kids to make their own games? Why is it, feminists don’t fund more programs to get girls interested in STEM? Why is it everything modern feminism apparently does has no tangible benefit?
Don’t get me wrong - I still consider myself a feminist. Maybe a bit of an old fashioned one (or maybe, a bit more progressive). I want to design a game with an all female cast. When I create stories, I go about it specifically thinking of how to empower female characters. When I think of what it would be like to be rich and famous, all I can think about is “I’m gonna fund scholarships, and programs, and children’s clubs, and museums, and I’m gonna make the world better”. Because that’s what I think feminism should be - not a bunch of screeching white women complaining about how a man asked them to smile. But an active movement to make effective change. And unfortunately I know I’ll never get it in this current atmosphere - because I know full well, modern feminists would never welcome that. Because it would change things.
Because the wealthy, here’s the thing, like politicians, they don’t want you to be smart. They don’t want you to be educated. They don’t want you to think. Modern feminists don’t want autonomous empowered women. They want scared, frightened victims who will suck up everything they say, give them all your money, and then parrot their talking points. Wanna know why this sounds familiar? It’s the same rhetoric used to keep many in the South bigoted, by teaching them to fear the unknown, defunding education, and making sure the population never questions. It’s the same rhetoric used by cults, who won’t let members venture outside for fear they might realize they’re being taken advantage of. It’s a tactic used, time and time again - make the lesser people afraid of something else, pin those groups against each other, and enjoy as you are able to do whatever you want without consequence, because the people who could rise up against you are too distracted by bullshit to stop you.
If that is what you want to support, FINE. But don’t be surprised when nothing changes. Don’t be surprised that sexism is still a thing, that women are still underrepresented, that nothing has improved. Because under current feminism, it won’t. It can’t. It’s not the end goal.
If you don’t want to support all that, congratulations. You’re a decent human. So stop, listen, and actually work on a change, instead of just worshiping and parroting celebrities who don’t give a shit about you.