| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago |
| This is being pushed by an Australian Feminist organization, not the American Religious Right. |
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| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 7 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| The group bills themselves as feminist, but aligns with the religious right in most of their policies. They’re directly at odds with many things feminists have fought for. |
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| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago | parent [-] | | I agree completely that they align with the religious right in this aspect, but you can't pretend that sex-negativity isn't a huge school of thought in feminism. Vague calls to "stop the sexualization of women in media (aimed at hetrosexual men)" have been a huge part of the casual feminist suite of views for at least a decade. | | |
| ▲ | nosignono 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There exist sex-negative feminists, but it is wrong to describe that as a feminist position. For the better part of a decade feminists have been wildly anti-objectification, not anti-sex. It's an important distinction. For example, most modern feminists are pro sex-work, but only under conditions that guarantee safety, autonomy, and health care for the sex workers. That's very different from how most sex work is done today. So a modern feminist might say that we should be doing more to protect the sex workers who are held in bondage by a pimp, and forced to walk the streets while simultaneously arguing in favor of well regulated, protected brothels or private sex work. | |
| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But the specific organization we're discussing is not feminist, they only disguise themselves as such. | | |
| ▲ | poszlem 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No true feminist... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman | | |
| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent [-] | | The "no true Scotsman" dismissal doesn't work when it's actually not a Scotsman. Or, as in this case, it's not a feminist organization. |
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| ▲ | morkalork 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can't really say that, there are many variations; for example, the women advocating for prohibition of alcohol way back in the day were feminists. Socially, their views would be more aligned with this Australian organization. | | |
| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent [-] | | But that'd be damning: these views (banning alcohol) of some of the early feminist movements are hopelessly outdated. Alignment with them would make Collective Shout conservative... and aligned with today's religious right, as I'm arguing all along. |
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| ▲ | sjsdaiuasgdia 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's interesting that you equate opposition to sexualization of women in media with sex negativity. One does not necessarily imply the other. You can be sex positive and believe that media sexualizes women to a problematic degree. | | |
| ▲ | Dweller1622 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Can you give me an example of this? As far as I understand it sex positivity doesn't seem to be concerned with "media sexualizing women" in and of itself. Consequently I'm not sure what "media [that] sexualizes women to a problematic degree" is or would even look like. | | |
| ▲ | nosignono 7 days ago | parent [-] | | It has to do with agency, primarily. Is the character in the media given the agency and depth necessary to support their sexual appetites? Or are they treated like an object by the camera, a 2 dimensional cutout whose purpose is only to be an object. Compare, for example, Sex and the City, where 4 women were regularly engaged in a variety of sexual encounters and say, background dancers in a music video or advert that exist to appeal as objects to a male audience. | | |
| ▲ | Dweller1622 7 days ago | parent [-] | | I've definitely seen people say it's about agency, though exactly what they mean by that and why they think that matters tends to vary. That said, I suspect your response is in line with the person I was originally responding to. In a different context I might be more sympathetic to this specific formulation of the concept since it's not always clear how much agency the background dancers in a music video or advert have. However, on the original topic of video games, the notion of "character agency" is rather pernicious. | | |
| ▲ | nosignono 7 days ago | parent [-] | | In a videogame, I can think of some examples. In Kotor 2, there's a character called "The Handmaiden", who will join your party if the player character is a male. She talks at great length about her situation and the decisions the player should make. She's depicted as a chaste, virginal religious character. But one of the very first things you can do with her when she joins your party is spar with her. And she strips into black lingerie to do so. Then she stays in black lingerie on your ship while you go and do other stuff. She's clearly there as an object for the audience to drool over. It's given a very surface level justification ("we always spar with only our bodies"), but that justification is provided the instant before the player sees her in her undies. (Which, it's important to note, aren't like modest undergarments one might expect from a religious figure like this, but are specifically sexy underwear.) Compare this to another Star Wars game, Jedi: Fallen Order, where the Night Sister Mirrin can becomes romantically involved with the player character. She has a well developed culture, and is given space to articulate her personality, choices, and opinions in a cogent way. She can be a romantic interest without being an object. She is as complex as all the other characters, and we don't see her positioned in sexy lingerie suddenly out of the blue. I can come up with other examples if those aren't illustrative. | | |
| ▲ | Dweller1622 7 days ago | parent [-] | | No, that's fine, since I think it's not only the case that these are sufficient, but that I simply wasn't explicit enough in my rejection. What I'm disputing is any application of objectification theory to media analysis wherein there are no actual agents involved. Neither The Handmaiden nor Night Sister Mirrin ever possessed any agency, nor were they deprived of it. There is simply no moral valence in how one treats or regards them. The demand here is that they be treated as if they possessed agency. I see no reason or obligation to do so. | | |
| ▲ | nosignono 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, I should have included -- in the context of the story. They are of course, not agents. They are fictional characters in a videogame. But humans built them, and humans framed them in the camera. Those humans did have the choice to provide them with a setting in which the characters do or do not have that agency. Those humans chose whether or not to depict that agency. Art reflects something about the creator, and often (but definitely not always) it's the values of the creator. If the authors choose to depict a world in which the character has no agency (within their setting), then perhaps the authors did not feel it was important or valuable to do so. Likewise, if the authors do depict a world in which the characters have agency, perhaps the authors feel it is valuable. But even detached from authorial intent, art is subject to critique -- we can look at a piece of art, knowing nothing of the creator, and ask, "What themes do we draw here? What values does this work put forward?" Kotor 2 raises many interesting questions about pedigogy and teaching, for instance. One critical read is that it is a piece of art that believes you should absolutely question the motivations of the people who want to teach you. Another thing Kotor 2 seems to value is women can (or even should) be objectified (in the case of the handmaiden) or instrumentalized (in the case of Kreia). None of the above requires you to recognize that the characters are agents within our world or have agency here. |
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| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's a reason I wrote "casual feminist suite of views" because while they two are very closely linked they are indeed separate. |
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| ▲ | baobabKoodaa 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's unfathomable that an Australian Feminist organization wields this much power in the U.S. and globally. It seems more likely that this is a front. |
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| ▲ | johnnyanmac 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The processors had this bias for decades. Some calls that already conform to what they want to do needs less nudging than proper consumer rights. | |
| ▲ | tumsfestival 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're not wrong. I read a couple days ago that this group receives funding from evangelical organizations to do stunts like this. I don't know if the intention is to false flag feminists as responsible, but it sure seems like it. |
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| ▲ | nemomarx 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I believe they get funding from evangelical orgs though and you have to assume MasterCard is willing and cooperating here to some extent |
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| ▲ | numpad0 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I see Mormon(LDS) churches occasionally mentioned on these topics. The Australian cult angle had only surfaced during the last week or so. |
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| ▲ | righthand 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You may want to take a look at how feminist that organization actually is. |
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| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There is a huge sex-negative feminist school of thought, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. | | |
| ▲ | righthand 7 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I never declared it doesn’t exist? Let me respond with your attacking-style: Just because you like it doesn’t mean it’s representative of feminism at large. It doesn’t mean it’s not a conservative think tank hiding behind a veil of feminism. | |
| ▲ | bluescrn 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | These days there seems to be a fair bit of sex-inconsistent feminism. With something like OnlyFans, where there's money to be made, the 'sex work is real work!' slogan comes out. And there's a reluctance to criticise big porn sites even after claims of links to sex trafficking etc. But at the same time, scantily-clad videogame characters designed to appeal to the male gaze are deemed unacceptable/objectifying/regressive. And 'sex robots' are seen as a horrifying prospect. | | |
| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago | parent [-] | | There's a range of views from a range of people, that's no surprise. That said, the common perception of men who pay for sex work (especially OF) is extremely negative, they are marks who deserve it. Meanwhile there is no such perception of men who pay for traditional media. |
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| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > There is a huge sex-negative feminist school of thought, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The specific organization we're discussing is not feminist. It's religious conservative, using some of the trappings of feminism. | | |
| ▲ | some_random 7 days ago | parent [-] | | Is it? The religious conservative organizations I've seen are also wringing their hands over other media as well such as smut or that shitty netflix show, while this one appears to be ambivalent to supportive. | | |
| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent [-] | | > Is it? Yes, it is. Let me see: they seem to receive funding from evangelical organizations; the founder speaks/writes at Christian venues and is pro-life, anti-gay/trans; they are targeting games because that's what they happen to focus on right now. They've also campaigned against Rap music and artists in the past. They managed to get articles critical of them pulled from VICE, etc. Their modus operandi is typical of religious conservatives. |
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| ▲ | 8f2ab37a-ed6c 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > This is being pushed by an Australian Feminist organization, not the American Religious Right. The founder is Christian and writes and speaks in Christian venues and publications. She's not a "feminist" by any reasonable and modern definition of the word. |
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| ▲ | BJones12 7 days ago | parent [-] | | Being Christian does not mean one is not feminist. This person seems to advocate for a multitude of things including ones that are historically feminist (of at least one commonly accepted variety of feminism). Those advocations make it reasonable to call her a feminist. | | |
| ▲ | the_af 7 days ago | parent [-] | | I didn't mean that one cannot be a Christian and a feminist. I meant that this person chooses Christian venues to voice her opinions, and shares with them non-feminist values such as being "pro life", etc. Hers is not a feminist organization, and Collective Shout is perceived by some as a right-wing group seeking to also ban LGTB+ depictions in videogames (which is not standard feminist agenda). Like another commenter mentioned, Collective Shout receives funding from evangelical organizations. And really, you have to ask yourself: since when exactly payment processors paid any attention to what genuine feminist organizations had to say about anything? At some point you cannot ignore the evidence anymore. At best you can point the non-empty intersection of conservative Christian groups and some sex-negative feminists who both seek to ban pornography, but this doesn't make them the same thing. TL;DR this is a variation of "will somebody think of the children!?" pearl-clutching, and everyone should know by now it doesn't lead to anything good. |
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