Can someone accurately explain GameGate in a sentence?

[loramin]

Originally Posted by radditsu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is patently false. NOBODY is trying to put off equality in video games.

Do I really think there's a bunch of evil men (ie. "the man") working at places like EA trying to keep women out of video games? Of course not. Hell, I know some of the people who work at those companies, and I can guarantee they're not all male chauvinists.

But at the same time, we don't just live in this instant, we live in the context of everything that came before us. It's pretty hard to deny that our entire society was stacked against women for the longest time, and you can't just pretend that something that systemic goes away over night when it doesn't. Video games were and still are filled with male protagonists. They're filled with "women as objects", in the sense that the women depicted in them exist to be sexual, not to have individual personalities. And they're filled with lots of other signals that women aren't welcome.

Is that a generalization? Totally. Are there games and game companies doing a much better job? Sure. But if you really think we've reached a point of equality I'd suggest you read some of the writings of the women who started this whole thing, as they can explain the topic so much better than I could.