The War Between Feminists and Anti-Feminists: Everyone's Doing It Wrong

I'm writing this because the above-mentioned social war is very bad for everyone involved.

Let's start with the event that propelled this war into the spotlight: Gamergate.
Common awareness of the war between feminists and various others largely began with Gamergate, and was shot back into general public view with the new Ghostbusters reboot. But it had been building for years prior. Although a lot of gamers in Gamergate zealously overreacted without having the facts straight, the deepest underlying complaint -- "this ideology is overtaking quality and truth" -- isn't entirely without basis. But wait, you might say, what does men sending death threats and leaving demeaning comments have to do with a lofty notion like that?

Indeed, almost everyone pounced on the idea that gamers' reactions in that instance, or how they reacted to a transgender character being introduced to a new Baldur's Gate game, were nothing more than misogyny. Why not? It's fun to think, and it's easy to assume. But when you stop and question that explanation for two seconds, you realize that it doesn't make much sense.

First off, who in particular is being accused? According to a 2015 Entertainment Software Association report, 42% of Americans play video games at least three hours a week, and 56% of gamers overall are male. You can't accuse "male gamers" without assuming that about 90 million Americans are misogynist assholes -- which is the epitome of negative stereotyping. Even addressing only the portion that were angered in Gamergate, why would so many people take issue with a woman writing about games? Let's ask this seriously with consideration of human psychology and the complexity of individuals.

Before we get to that, the concept that male gamers intrinsically have a problem with women being involved in the gaming industry is the exact opposite of the truth. Male gamers intrinsicallylove female gamers. Don't forget that gaming used to be uncool just a decade or two ago. Women used to be a considerably smaller portion of the gaming population, and those who played RPGs, MMOs, action-adventure games like Metal Gear, strategy games, shooting games, etc., were rarer still. If your passion and greatest hobby is often boring or even a turn-off to members of the opposite sex, finding those who share that passion is awesome. I know. I've been playing games since I was tiny, from Mario to FFT to EQ to DDR, and if there's one thing I know it's that gamers have traditionally seen female gamers as positively dreamy. If a woman designs games or knows them deeply enough to write well about them, that's even better. Admittedly, this could be annoying when I had to combat stereotypes that women aren't generally as good at games (which is of course going to be true as a generalization when less women have practice at playing them, just like the stereotype about men sucking at cooking used to be accurate overall for the same reason); but on the flip side, kicking someone's ass at something they expect you to be mediocre at is hella fun.

So if men have no particular issue with women in gaming, what's with all the fuss lately?

Well, let's look at it through the lens of the furious reaction to Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. It's understandable that this reaction was likewise misunderstood. Especially when there are actual bigots mixed in, it's all too easy to interpret the entire opposition as bigotry. But as a general interpretation, it's simply wrong.

This is the meat of the issue: male gamers are not opposed to transgender or otherwise unconventional characters, in and of themselves. How do I know? Because games have included them since long before "transgender" was in common use, to zero complaint from male gamers. "Male or female, what difference does it make? Power is beautiful, and I've got the power." This is a quote from a trans character in Chrono Trigger, which came out in 1995. If anything, games were ahead of the social curve. In fact, such characters have been featured for decades. How about the complaint that there are no strong female characters in gaming, and that women in video games are just sex objects or damsels in distress? Well, that's way off base, too; but someone who's only aware of games like Mario wouldn't know it. Metroid, Parasite Eve, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, StarCraft, Portal, basically every Final Fantasy game ever made, all entries in the Baldur's Gate series...the list of strong, unsexualized female characters goes on and on. Do men have a problem with this? No. They enjoy it. Gamers love creativity and innovation. They like seeing diverse, colorful characters.

What gamers do not like are: being told some things they enjoy about games are bad and must be done away with, like violence or sexy women (why is there anything wrong with sexy female characters if they're balanced by strong female characters as listed above? a weirdly suppressive complaint); having relative outsiders criticize their lifelong passion ignorantly; game quality being sacrificed for the sake of agenda; or having ideological, socially-driven elements shoehorned into games.

Is the trans character in Baldur's Gate shoehorned? Well, it's debatable at the very least. It's obviously a reaction to the recent social climate. Look at this screenshot from the article I linked, put yourself in the shoes of a gamer who's been criticized and ostracized for their hobby for years and is now watching it being tampered with for the sake of social agenda, and you can see it would be very, very easy to draw that conclusion -- whether or not it's correct, how can we expect objectivity at this point? It would be nice, but people aren't perfect. It's a very human reaction. If we want to be fair to our fellow human beings, we have to acknowledge that this explanation makes a lot more sense than, "Oh, they're woman-haters, the lot of 'em." And this is made more obvious by the fact that many of the angry comments include the phrase "SJW" (social justice warrior), which could not be a commonly-used term unless there was history of a social battle. It's a red flag.

I am not defending any of the poor reactions. I am explaining why gamers reacted the way they did. This has been going on for years, and they're sick of it. Unfortunately, instead of calmly discussing their concerns without vitriol, without making violent threats, without jumping to conclusions, and without seeing agenda where there is none, many have been acting like children. Part of this is that there are actual misogynists mixed in. Part of it is that some men are actually becoming more misogynistic because of the attacks on them and their hobbies. Also, gamers have spent many years in games and the Internet. Have you ever looked at a Youtube comments section? Have you ever played an online shooting game? It's not exactly PG-13. These kinds of comments aren't restricted to expressing frustration and anger towards "social justice warriors"; they are the digital climate gamers grew up with.

But gamers, this is where you are making a huge mistake. You're not accomplishing anything by throwing fits; instead, you're only feeding the fire. Everyone is looking at your reactions and concluding exactly what you're mad they are concluding. It's more than ineffectual: it's hurting your cause. Recently millennials complained about a new TV show that makes fun of millennials for being hypersensitive. If you can see the irony in that, think for a moment. Staying calm and accepting facts, taking into account relevant points others you generally disagree with may have -- this is how to get somewhere, and perhaps more importantly, remain a decent and open-minded person.

The gaming issue is a mere microcosm of the overarching war between feminists and, surprisingly, many men who actually aren't misogynists. (Of course, then you have Red Pill assholes and other sorts of assholes.) But, you might say, that doesn't make any sense, because to oppose feminism is to oppose women.

No. It isn't.
As a woman, I will now address what the feminist side has been doing wrong.

I'm not going to bother talking about gaming anymore, partially because the women criticized there, such as Anita Sarkeesian, should certainly not represent all feminists. Let's at least get halfway to an Emma Watson level. I also want to vastly broaden this discussion.

Feminism originated as a fight for equal rights for women as compared to men. At first it was mere demand for basic legal rights, but evolved to include complaints about work discrimination, questioning how women are "supposed" to act, etc. Each decade and generation, it has made great strides forward. In fact, it is probably the most successful social movement in American history, especially when you compare it to the back-and-forth, plodding, violent movement for racial quality. Feminism has achieved so much that the issues it now addresses (rape excepted) are much more subtle, more nuanced, and even more subjective.

A concept involving mass numbers of human supporters, organizations, publications, even classes, and money is like a machine. Feminism, just like socialism, black nationalism, or Satanism, is a social machine. A machine requires fuel. Some such machines, like Satanism, only require supporters. Their objective is to exist. They do not require external change to continue existing, only initiates. Others, like black nationalism, are active by definition. Their very concept is based in action and provoking external change.

What happens to such a machine when change is achieved? What happens when there are no serious opponents remaining for feminism? Does feminism end? If not, does this imply the fight cannot be won? What happens to all of the organizations, the individuals, everything involved? As you can see, social machines take on a life of their own, and they want to live forever.

You couldn't run around demanding that black people be allowed to sit wherever they like on the bus. That fight is history. Why? Not just because it is a fight that was won. There's another reason: because the question of whether it is won is indisputable. All you have to do is look at the laws and the buses. Oh, they are allowed. Good. However...can you demand that black people receive equal treatment? Yes, you can; but what's frightening is that with a concept like that, you can demand it forever, even if it is achieved, because it's too difficult to measure. Worse, it has positive origins, so if it mutates and becomes corrupted, the name will continue to carry it farther than it ought, no matter what the objectives become. Such a cause can use its good name and trappings to quickly shut mouths and minds. You'll notice that just about anyone with a social reputation at stake is very quick to cater to feminist ideology and terrified of being seen as disagreeing in any way.

Feminism is a massive machine that, from its very origins and in its concept, is based in external change. It wants to live forever, and to do that it requires fuel: opponents (whether human or material).

Starting around the 80's, feminism began to grow confused because it began to run out of clear opponents. No longer did laws discriminate against women. No longer did people think it was acceptable to harass women or implicate they were lower quality than men. This has become more true every decade since. Now, in 2016, it's extremely difficult to make the case that young women are at a considerable disadvantage compared to young men. You can try, and there are still some small barriers and genuine problems, but there are so many counter-arguments for much of it. Education is one of the most powerful tools in our society, and women have now surpassed men in college completion rates.

The opponents chosen by feminism have started to become superficial and minute (the design of Barbie, despite the fact that male toys are also unrealistic muscle-bound action hero designs). The opponents are no longer clear; they have to be sought. This forces hardcore feminists to actively look for problems. And yeah, it feels good. It feels really good to complain and argue about something as supposedly inarguably good and correct as feminism. But it also forces many women to reject evidence that women have any social advantages or that men have any social disadvantages, just as the demonized "white cis male" begins to reject evidence that women have social disadvantages or men have social advantages.

The arguments start to become illogical (I have seen it argued that women aren't naturally physically weaker than men, culture just teaches men they have to work out a lot and that's why men are stronger on average; I have seen people in a public debate angrily agree that a man who had been speaking a half-minute shorter than the woman then speaking had been given more time, etc.). When someone is forced to make weak or illogical arguments in order to promote their cause, they tend to become readily angered because people get angry when they feel powerless, and the cause starts to lose legitimacy.

So, the cause has become more nebulous and that has forced some feminists into irrational, emotional behavior, resulting in further loss of legitimacy. Naturally, sexist people will pounce on this; but it also puts a bad taste in the mouth of many non-sexist people. Why don't some people want to identify as feminists? Why do some people roll their eyes or seem repelled when someone rages with feminist arguments? Because too many feminists fucked it up, not because everyone who disagrees is a misogynist. Ironically, men reacting to being mocked and yelled at based solely on their gender are fucking up in the exact same way. There's too much anger and defensiveness going around. Way too much. A lot of people don't wish to be associated with those feminists who cherry-pick, yell people down, or take a one-sided view. People start to push back and question feminism. What to say?

"It's not just about women." Feminism needs to evolve again to stay in good favor. "It's about everyone." The argument for this is that men also benefit when women are better off. It's a good and true argument. Unfortunately, it doesn't change the fact that what it is meant to support -- that "feminism is gender equality" -- is a lie. In various ways, feminism has made it easier for men to be more effeminate, and recently feminism has become thoroughly intertwined with trans movements. However, feminists often do not seem very concerned with average men: "straight, white, cis men." It is positively bewildering to me how someone can react to being mistreated and stereotyped based on their gender by mistreating and stereotyping people based on their gender. You can see how wrong-headed it is to demonize anyone based on their race, gender, or orientation -- even if those align with the groups that currently hold the most power -- when you consider that in having a problem with such men, logically one must also have a problem with straight, white, cis, male children. And what this consideration really brings to light is that too many feminists attack and dismiss people for the sin of their being born.

You cannot do that without making enemies of people who should be your allies. You cannot complain about Barbie but not about Ken without making people scratch their heads. You cannot blindly accept statistics that you like, but research ones that you don't until you find something to disprove them, without stealing legitimacy from your cause. (Example: How many women have bothered to dig into the "women make 79 cents per every dollar men make" statistic? Contrarily, how many men have bothered to question why women tend to win custody battles?) And you cannot ignore the fact that women have it better than men in too many ways to count now, even as men still have it better than women in so many ways, without being forced to dismiss reality. If you can't think of any, that's a big problem.

Feminism has become a hungry machine corrupted by lack of fuel. Its components are grabbing at whatever they can to continue feeding it. Many don't want to hear counter-arguments. Too many can't read something like this without filling with anger, just like the should-be-decent men reacting can't read feminist arguments objectively any more. "Bigot," "sexist," "misogynist," and other names are not replacements for level-headed arguments. "Bitch," "SJW," "man-hater," etc., are not replacements for level-headed counter-arguments.

The number of people engaged on either side of this war who are acting like children is embarrassing as an American, female, and someone with many male friends. I am not on the side of either group. I reject unscientific thinking. I reject single-minded thinking. I reject lack of concern for human beings based on superficial factors and stereotypes. I care that men sometimes feel entitled to sex, that women are raped, that women lack confidence compared to men and can be too readily perceived as weak, etc. I care that men are sometimes demonized, that problems they do have are often dismissed out of hand, that sociological agendas sometimes distort quality or science.

But above all I care about human rights and human equality. None of this is happening out of love. It's happening out of hate. Hatred and poisonous words and actions are mutating either side and forcing people to cling to their views more and more blindly.

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . .
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"
-Rudyard Kipling