Women and #GamerGate

Dalrock explains the female compulsion at the root of it all:

Feminism at its core is envy of men and a desire to usurp their position. It would be difficult to overstate just how deep this feeling is. This isn’t just about the apex fallacy, it is about a deep desire to “be one of the guys”.  Any group of men getting together to create or enjoy anything will result in women wanting in. The only question is which category the women belong to. Some will want to try to experience the manly enjoyment/pride directly, and will take real steps to be (like) one of the guys. These are the ones who tend to defend the male space.  They don’t want it ruined because they want to experience it.  But others (a much larger group) will realize that they can’t actually experience this, and will then set out to stamp out what they can’t have.  The first category inadvertently paves the way for the second, assuming they don’t themselves shift priorities mid stream.

This is a remarkable explanation of what we've seen take place in the game industry since 1995. I mention that year because that was the year that I met Brenda Laurel at CGDC just prior to her founding Purple Moon, which was the first serious attempt by a woman to exploit an aspect of the vertical game market that first exploded with Facebook, then mobile.

Laurel is a feminist, with all the problems and issues that entails, but she was not only a legitimate, if pedestrian game developer, she was not at all interested with the rest of the game industry, let alone interested in trying to ruin it. Even the troubled transvestite who calls himself Spacekatgal is more interested in selling his own game than in interfering with other games, his crusade against Assassin's Creed notwithstanding. But the likes of Anita Sarkeesian fall squarely into Dalrock's second group, as she is a parasite whose primary motivation is to invade the male space and destroy it.

Is it "the curse of Eve"? Is it some yet-to-be explained female pathology? Who knows. But it is a repeatedly observable phenomenon.

Posted in: Gynē