@buttonmasherer man that's a real childish way to engage another human being. calling somebody weak-minded is a really great way to excuse yourself from using your own mind in any critical way, which you clearly haven't in this case.
@Ekibiokami that would be because gender is a two-way street. the same construction that objectifies the feminine shapes the masculine to need power and control.
@Maigrett i'm not really in the business of telling people what they should or shouldn't do, i just take issue with people attacking somebody for calling misogyny what it is. i support open discourse.
@Ekibiokami i'm not talking about what lands people in prison, i'm talking about how the content of our culture shapes us and the way we relate to each other. but also it's ridiculous to claim that their view of women had nothing to do with why many people end up in prison.
@Hazegurl not saying the whole brain is constantly being rewritten completely, i'm saying that the assumptions that any person can rationally shield themselves from sexism etc, or that things like sexism etc are questions of sexist/not-sexist or good/evil, are fundamental misunderstandings of how sexism works and our relationship to it as individuals and members of a community. it's not a question of going on a witch hunt (well for some people it is, but they're misguided). like i said it's about being able to see that sexism etc exist in a way other than "he's sexist" "she's racist", that these things are built to a substantial degree into our cultural structures and systems of representation, and it's about being able to have a conversation about that so that all of us (including i assume you and many other commenters here) who would like to see sexism etc diminished can engage in a healthier more empathetic way with each other and maybe diminish our own contributions to the entrenchment of sexism etc in our culture. i've also grown up playing violent video games, as well as consuming a great deal other violent/sexist/racist media, and i'm passionately opposed all of these things, but i'm also willing to admit that being opposed to these things doesn't mean that i don't have a lot of sexism etc built into my psychology. i'm not making the strong claims that you seem to think i am (that there's a 1 to 1 relationship between violence/sexism/racism in the media you consume and your attitude and behavior after consuming it), i'm saying we're immersed in a system that shapes the way we see and engage with the world, and talking about the things we don't like about this system is exactly how it gets changed.
@Ekibiokami and i only said that because you have no basis for judging how much somebody else knows about something which you don't yourself know very much about.
@Hazegurl that's just plainly not how the things you're talking about operate. if only things were that simple, we could probably make a lot more progress on actually eliminating racism, sexism, homophobia etc. unfortunately the picture is far more complex, and one part of it is that no matter what you may think about your ability to rationally decide sexism etc are wrong, you are constantly negotiating with the social world, being shaped by it, and to one degree or another reproducing it. our social world at this point still has an incredible amount of sexism, racism, etc built into it, so you have no choice about whether or not you get those things written and constantly rewritten in your brain. that's why it's important to point these things out where they show up: not to censor them, not to attack the people who make or enjoy games that exhibit them, to help each other see what we're exposing ourselves to so that we might as a community get a little better at not reproducing them.
muaddibjihad's comments