Why Feminists should REALLY Care about GamerGate

If you read the Wikipedia page about GamerGate, it will tell you GamerGate is about sexism in media. Many adament GamerGate supporters are going to disagree with you on that, and even opponents of GamerGate have begun begrudgingly admitting that the actual purpose of GamerGate IS ethics in media. The issue is, ethics in media and discussions of sexism aren’t mutually exclusive. In some ways, GamerGate is tackling sexism.

Just not how you think.

GamerGate is a feminist issue, not because feminists need to oppose GamerGate, but because feminists should be the first to stand behind GamerGate. Media ethics is an issue which effects every group, and GamerGate is not the first time we’ve seen it discussed but it is the first consumer revolt of its type against a specific genre of journalism. Prior protests have only been against single shows or people, or have been an overarching criticism without much weight. GamerGate is a specific, pointed look at ethics in video game and tech media, still one of the fastest growing forms of news media out there.

Why does this make it a feminist issue? First, I want to look at the larger problem with media — beyond simply gaming, which makes GamerGate a progressive issue.

Since Ferguson (and no doubt, for a long time before) there has been discussions in how media handles issues of race, wherein titles and descriptions tend to portray white criminals more sympathetically than black criminals. Within journalism itself, there are huge gaps in the number of women and people of color writing, especially writing op-eds. Women represent only 36% of journalists in the United States and an average of 28% of total op-ed pieces are written by women (sampled from 8 major news venues). These numbers most likely remain true for gaming news sites (MATH: there are three executives on Kotaku’s head board who are women, accounting for only 15% of their total main staff — same goes for Polygon), wherein most writers, even those writing about issues such as GamerGate and female representation, are white males.

Despite these obvious disparities, many journalists love to write about how women are unfairly cheated in other avenues. And this is where the feminism comes in: it is very clear journalists love to criticize and berate other occupations for not being “equal”, but seem to care very little about making changes in themselves to amend the problem. This is because, and I am being forward about this, journalists don’t actually care about feminism or helping women. It is an easy thing to hide behind, but truthfully, most likely, journalists feign an interest in feminism not out of any sense of duty but because it is typically a hot button topic which garners many views.

Cracked.com is another obvious example — like Polygon and Kotaku, few of their writers are actually female and most of the writers actively writing about “feminism” are male. Yet they recently have started publishing about one “feminist” article a week, almost exclusively written by men (namely, Luke McKinney). As well, and noted in the links, these groups lack general diversity, with only a spotting of black and Latin@ writers.

So why is it the same journals who happily call GamerGate a meeting of misogynists seem to employ only enough women to say they hire women? See above, because they don’t actually care about feminism. I would go further as to say, they are more likely to be anti-feminist.

The use of women as tools in the media is something you would think someone like Anita Sarkeesian would harp on, but instead she encourages it. Despite the fact that the use of feminism to garner views and clicks extinguishes the autonomy and choices of women and draws feminist concerns away from real issues like sex trafficking, health, and intersectional mistreatment of women of color, and onto non-issues like “This cartoon character has boobs that are too big”. It gives people a false impression of feminism. I fully agree that we can discuss more than one issue at a time, but that isn’t what is happening. Issues of sexual assault only become “issues” when you can make them into headlines. Take for instance: Brianna Wu is a transgender woman who has allegedly recieved a great deal of harassment. She claims it is because she is an outspoken female developer, and has gone to great lengths to draw attention to her personal plight, on which she has based her Patreon (currently raking in over $3,000 a month). Many publishers have let Wu write articles, even articles which based solely on hearsay and paranoia. Thus far, Wu has not be victimized by any physical attacks.

Meanwhile, porn star Cytherea was brutally raped in her own home and her story and trauma recieved no attention from any media outlets…until after Mercedes Cerrara began promoting it, drawing GamerGate’s attention to it. (None of the above links are archived). Then it became controversial. Even then, major networks and critics of GamerGate refuse to talk about or recognize Cytherea thus far.

So to be clear: a woman who has thus far only received verbal harassment via the Internet has received more attention than a victim of rape.

Let’s look further, at the general media. The media loves to paint celebrities such as Beyonce and Taylor Swift as feminists. I am not going to argue these women are not, but they have quickly become the faces of feminism simply for…well, talking about how they’re feminist. But they rarely seem to label other women as feminist, who take arguably more feminist actions. But maybe it’s because journalism has made feminism more about scandal than about work. Malala Yousafzai is one of my heros, who I rarely see called a feminist. And who, it seems, doesn’t want to be called a feminist. Because feminism has become a word not refering to a movement or action but to just a label.

And journalism helped create it. In a way, journalism has destroyed feminism.

Let’s get back to GamerGate. True proponents of GamerGate, the ones who write the letters and have the conversations, truly could care less about gender. I have met many in GamerGate from all across the political spectrum, from many different parts of the world, of all different colors of the LGBT rainbow. It is far more diverse than people make it out to be. They have one goal — fix gaming journalism. The same journalism, recall, that has turned feminism into a buzzword, instead of a reference to a powerful movement. As a feminist, I support GamerGate, at first because I simply supporting promoting ethics in journalism but as I read more and learned more I realized, feminists should be behind this.

If you want to fix what is perceived as “sexism” in gaming, then this INCLUDES a sexist media. Which uses women as props and which treats the experiences of minorities not like unique turmoils but like juicy soundbites to make a catchy title. They don’t care about representation. They just want to make money off of it. They’re more interested in the controversy. Hence why articles about women in the industry tend to be screeching drivel about how dangerous it is instead of empowering essays on women who have done well and women who are paving the way and programs encouraging women to join STEM fields. It is this type of behavior that GamerGate views as unethical, and truly it is. Using minorities as tools to make money is beyond unethical I would argue. Personally, I find it downright sexist. And I find the use of women’s issues as shield against profressional criticism by the likes of Jonathan McIntosh, Ben Kuchera, and Robert Evans to be the actual misogyny in this situation.

If you are a feminist, I implore you: give GamerGate the chance. Recognize how these men have used feminism to make themselves wealthier, to give them an excuse to ignore legitimate concerns, and to try and hide from attempts to fix this problem by painting a diverse movement as a hate movement. If you want to learn more, I would suggest the GamerGate.me website.

I am a feminist. I am #GamerGate, and I am #NotYourShield.