As the rest of my class attempts to create their blogs, I have chosen to take the easy way out and recycle my old blog. Once dedicated to British Literature, this blog will now serve as a place for musings on Feminism and pop culture. As suggested, I'd like to take a moment and discuss the movie that was watched in class today.
As brought up by Dr. Hager shortly after the movie, I do have an issue with the correlation between violent video games and rape and other forms of violence against women. I date gamers. That is not a preference. If you do not play games (COD and Halo do not count because they are stupid), then I'm not interested. My ex's as well as my current boyfriend have no violent tendencies toward me. Honestly, they have always been aware that I would dole out a world of hurt before that got the chance to properly formulate the thought. I would like to direct my readers' attention to this bit of light reading regarding the flaws in the ideas of those who propose that there is a connection between killing a female elf in-game and punching your girlfriend afterwards. It's a ridiculous notion and one that makes me very angry.
My other thoughts on video games shall be reserved for another time, though. I'd like to talk about how put off I was at seeing some of the "news" clips during the film. I was not unaware of the frankly piggish nature of men in the media business. Good lord, I'd have to be living under a rock to have turned a blind eye to it! I wish I could accurately quantify the amount of anger I felt while listening to some of the statements made, though. I don't care where one stands politically-- speech like that aimed towards any news anchor or politician is wrong. That's the interesting thing about feminism, I think. In my opinion, feminism is not about extremes, it is about common decency. It's about the little things your mum and dad sit you down to talk about when you're a child. Be nice to everyone. Everyone. It's about the "Thumper Rule," as one of my high school teachers called it. If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it. It's about the Golden Rule, the "do unto others" rule. You know the one I'm talking about. But that's enough. I've gotten myself into a tizzy. If you don't mind, I'd like to sit and listen to some Cabin Pressure for a while and cool down.
Tatty Bye!
Though I definitely agree with you about the whole way too easy relationship that commentators make between video games and violence, I think it IS important to talk about the gendered nature of much of the violence in games participates in an overall culture of violence against women that make real violence against women much more likely.
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