Anita Sarkeesian (previously) is a brilliant media theorist and critic whose Feminist Frequency/Tropes vs. Women in Video Games projects revolutionized the way we talk about gender and games — and also made her a target for a virulent misogynist hate-machine of harassing manbabies who threatened her life, doxed her, and did everything they could to intimidate her into silence.

Kate from Feminist Frequency (previously) writes, "Feminist Frequency has just released a supplemental mini-episode in their Tropes vs Women in Video Games series."

The creator behind a series of feminist critiques of game design tropes—and target of a relentless campaign of online harassment—is profiled by Wil Wheaton.

Anita is just the latest woman writer to prove the law coined by journalist Helen Lewis: that the sexist comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.

Sarkeesian was willing to go on with the show at Utah State University — as she's done after all the other death threats that she's received as a speaker — but wanted attendees checked for firearms. Ogden, UT cops refused, citing Utah's open-carry firearms law. — Read the rest

Whenever the feminist games-critic and survivor of countless outraged misogynist stalkers Anita Sarkeesian's name is invoked, there follows a flood of men who want to explain that she brought it on herself, that she isn't a gamer, that she isn't a good critic, and assorted related rubbish.

Anita Sarkeesian, whose excellent Tropes vs Women in Video Games series is an important contribution to the discussion of gender and games, has been driven from her home by enraged male gamers whose stalking, and explicit, credible threats of sexual violence against her and her family convinced her to go into hiding.

Mother Jones reporter Nina Liss-Schultz asked Anita Sarkeesian why she thinks she has been targeted by knuckle-dragging assholes on the internet–vicious threats, death, rape, and beatings by haters who happen to be men, and believe that women like Sarkeesian should shut up and stay out of their clubhouse. — Read the rest

Here's a new installment in Anita Sarkeesian's Kickstarter-funded, misogynist-enraging, must-watch "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series: Ms Male Character: a closely annotated, fascinating 25 minutes on the practice of producing a "female" version of video-games by feminizing the lead characters.

Anita Sarkeesian has released the long-awaited first installment in her new, improved "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series.

A lead designer working on Warner Brothers' Harry Potter: Hogwarts Legacy video game operated a YouTube channel where he ranted about "identity politics" and supported Gamergate, the harassment campaign against women in the game industry.

Among Leavitt's other videos are lengthy defenses of both John Lasseter, the Pixar co-founder who left his position at Disney in 2017 after allegations of sexual misconduct, and Nolan Bushnell, the Atari co-founder who Kotaku's reporting found to have fostered a toxic work environment for women.

The latest Tropes vs Women in Video Games (previously) is as on-point, smart, and deep as ever.

With a couple of days left, Feminist Frequency is about to hit their funding goal for Ordinary Women, a lavishly animated series about women who dared defy their times–and who history hasn't given their dues. Below is the complete set of preview videos for Ida Wells, Ching Shih, Emma Goldman, Murasaki Shikibu and Ada Lovelace; go help push them over the line at Seed & Spark. — Read the rest

Feminist Frequency's excellent Tropes vs Women in Video Games has a new installment on the prevailing ways that characters' butts are presented in games: with female characters, they're emphasized, centered and revealed; with male characters, it's often literally impossible to see their butts. — Read the rest

Former federal prosecutor, free speech advocate and generally smart dude Ken "Popehat" White has posted "ten short rants" about #Gamergate, which, surprisingly, contain nuance and gloss I haven't yet encountered in the verbiage devoted to the subject elsewhere.

The mainstream media finally discovered the Internet's latest subculture of hostile, cynical, easily-led youngsters. Matt Binder on the narcissists, grifters and creeps arriving in its wake.

Gamergate, the online backlash targeting a female game developer and critics of sexism in games, has a surprising new friend: Intel, the world's largest chipmaker.

According to game news publication Gamasutra, the company pulled ads from the site after being "flooded" by complaints from gamers upset at its criticism of the protest. — Read the rest

Glenn Fleishman reports from Portland's beloved arts and technology festival, where a darker sense of mission and meaning took hold in the event's third year.

Anna Sarkeesian's brilliant, crowdfunded Tropes vs Women in Video Games web-series (previously) has a new episode, Women as Background Decoration: Part 2 [TW: rape, sexual violence, violence], which expertly dissects the use of violence against women, especially sexual violence as a lazy means of establishing skimpy motivations for player characters to hunt down the baddies.

Anita Sarkeesian has posted Women as Background Decoration: Part 1, the latest installment in her Feminist Frequency Tropes vs Women in Video Games critical video series. Gamers are insanely (and I mean that literally) threatened by Sarkeesian's analysis, which is carefully and closely argued, and backed by solid scholarly research. — Read the rest

When Anita Sarkeesian kickstarted a research project into female videogame tropes, you might have expected some nasty remarks from game culture's contingent of adolescent boys.

But Sarkeesian's been subjected to much more: attempts to hack her website, comics depicting her being raped, and even a video game where the player pounds her face into a bloodied pulp. — Read the rest