I don't often comment on sexism in games since it's too large of a topic to encompass in a simple essay and it can be often too hard to tango. I don't often even thinking about it, but I notice it sometimes. It just sort of crops up from behind before violently gushing all over your mind. Recently there's been a sharp rise in women game designers, yay, but what seems like a sharp decrease in the progression of video-games as a culture.

You may already be guessing that I'm against what has been happening, no, I'm against the fact that it has happened. I'm not taking sides in this, as the only side is common sense.

To those who are not aware of what the bacon happened:

http://www.bettween.com/jimsterling/daphaknee/desc

Some homophobic woman decided to tackle Jimbo for many consecutive tweets and our lad Sterling fought back and eventually slipped up.

"You're the embarrassment. To your gender, your species, and all feminazi sluts like yourself"

This is the quote taken out of context, or rather just 'feminazi sluts'. This has caused a raucous and led to a debate of whether Sterling was acting sexist, simply being angry at a selfish ignorant hypocrite or even taking part in a word blend contest to see who could blend fascism and feminine language. Clearly, right here we have "embarrassment to your gender" in that Jim isn't looking at all women but a specific person who is using backwards language - namely homophobic - the following debate over the last few days has showed a complete ignorance to this fact. I'm not trying to stir up a comment or a debate but I think representing homosexuality in video-games is well about gender rights.

Those come naturally, as they should do, but it will take a stronger battle to get everybody to nod in agreement that homosexuals are cool dudes just like the rest of us. It's still a common thing in society to see people against homosexuality for a variety of irrational reasons and to see it infect a part of video-games and go by completely unchecked in the face of a debate about sexism is completely barbaric.

How was this blown out of context?

http://twitter.com/feliciaday/status/33364998575099904



http://twitter.com/feliciaday/status/33366201702809600



Felicia Day took it upon herself to exercise a common 'girl gamer' sense of pride. That's fine, it's to be expected in times of necessary cultural challenge for people of the minority to show just how many they are. It's happened with the civil rights movement and, relating to this topic, the fight for women's vote.

It's still silly how she's looked at a simple thread full of ignorant comments, taken out of complete context and not discussing the real issue of homophobia. She's a busy woman, Jim has tweeted her and so have many other people. She'll be trapped in that bubble, along with a lot of people, who just see 'feminazi sluts' and instantly think Jim was referring to all women.

It's also slightly hypocritical of Felicia, given that she's used sexism to her advantage and, this may be a strong thing to say, perhaps belonged to the group that Jim was referring to. I am talking about her music videos, which specifically include using her sexuality to sell merchandise. Not that I blame her for using her body, it's a nice body, but it's not exactly going to help women or the progress of a post-sexism society by saying "Is cool. Just be sexy!"

I'm not saying she's homophobic, but she's neglecting the need to shift us from the old ways into the new ways. I believe sexism to be as bad as homophobia, so she's quite hypocritical in what she's accusing Jimbo of doing.



Jim wasn't calling all women 'feminazi sluts', perhaps referring to a very enclosed group that said person belonged to. I'm going to be completely honest and say that people like daphaknee exist. Women who exercise homophobia but seem to disregard all respect for the female race. In essence, they are the racists at immigration debates. These people need to be called who they are. I'm not defending the language, but I'm defending its purpose.

So where did the whole debate escalate?


GJAIF Post

Ben Paddon is an asshole, but he's an important asshole. He writes GJAIF, a blog cataloguing the incompetency of video-game journalists. I've written there myself once or twice and the bloke and I get along well, as do me and Jim, but we often disagree. I usually disagree when he starts using personal insults such as "bishop's nut-sack" instead of trying to persuade people to not plagiarize. I get angry at plagiarism, I think a lot of people like Ben and I do, but it seems he often over-reacts. However, I disagree with all of the insults he got in return and generally he's trying to do good in the world.

I don't blame him for posting that blog, but I'm against him when he accuses Jim of using "sexist language". Sexist language would be calling out an entire gender or being bias towards one gender simply because of their gender. Stim Jerling was simply calling out a specific group who want to negate the need for progress in a society shifting from sexism to post-sexism.

I personally don't think Jim is being sexist. As I said before, I believe Jim to be attacking a specific group of women who are homophobic and are stopping the progress of a post-sexism society. That's simply my opinion, you're welcome to disagree, but Jim wasn't referring to the full gender. He in fact said "embarrassment to your gender", if he had said "Just like the rest of your gender" or just completely left that out and outright said "Feminazi sluts" then, yeah, I'd be for all the talk of him being fired. Honestly, I would, or at least demand an apology which he would gladly submit to as he's Stimbo Jerling. In fact, he's apologized to all those people who were offended, either because they're strong feminists or just... offended. It isn't a bad thing to put a different spin on it. A comment taken out of context is likely to hurt you, but perhaps you're pointing the right fingers at the wrong people.

Jim's apology:



The rabbit hole perhaps goes further, with a certain Mikey Neumann (Borderlands Creative Director, Anthony Burch stealer) joining in the fray.

http://twitter.com/mikeyface/status/33358263873441792



http://twitter.com/mikeyface/status/33376895353495553



http://twitter.com/mikeyface/status/33366777886932992



"Either side" strikes me as an odd comment as we're either seeing homophobia versus sexism or sexism versus anti-sexism. Which one is it? Is it the latter? If so then, once again, a more serious topic has been completely ignored. Don't get me wrong, sexism is an important topic, but I'm one of those people who thinks it's slightly racist to call Obama the "The first African American President", as it sort of belittles their progress. Of course it's an amazing thing to be celebrate but if you want progress, namely equality, then he's the "44th President of the United States of America."

That's my opinion, you're welcome to disagree, but I honestly think we're now in a society that has gotten past the sexism vein. Women's vote, equal wage rights and so on and so forth. Of course sexism exists because idiots exist. It may never go away because, unfortunately, stupidity is a cheaper commodity than common sense.

Mikey and Jim have now sorted out their differences over the Twitterface, Felicia Day has vanished from the face of the Earth and likely thousands of ignorant comments have been written about our Jim. Throughout this piece I've suggested that Jim isn't a sexist, in my view, and I may have taken a side. I haven't, I don't need to decide as there's more important issues to be writing about. If you really want to know then I personally think the man casually put the phrase in there and didn't expect the backlash. He's Sterling, he makes the Jimquisition, he wants progress and he'd like you to join in with him.

So, can we finally get over taking comments out of context and seeing things for what they really are. It was not a sexism remark, it may be sexist language as Mikey and Ben Paddon have pointed it, but sexist language becomes the proper wording when it comes to referring to a full gender and not a specific group. There are many 'feminazi sluts' who aren't female.

Let's get into this post-sexism state and start talking more about something else. Sexuality itself and the diversity it can bring, how about that?