In 2009, critic Anita Sarkeesian started Feminist Frequency with one goal: to make criticism—particularly from a feminist perspective—an easier subject for anyone to grasp.

“ “I’m going to take these things that I love critically and talk about them to engage a wider audience.”

“Being a fan was a very nice fit for me,” Sarkeesian told IGN in a Skype interview. “I’m going to take these things that I love critically and talk about them to engage a wider audience.”

Sarkeesian points to scholars like Bell Hooks, who used examples drawn from pop culture to better relate and educate students in an effort to make feminism and gender studies more grounded in familiar properties.

The banner for Anita Sarkeesian's pop culture critique series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games.

At that time, video blogs and YouTube were beginning to gain traction in the public eye, and Sarkeesian saw the format as a great way to engage people in a digestible manner. Eventually, her work led to the formation of her most famous video series, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, a series seeking to “explore, analyze, and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games.”

Tropes vs. Women has explored multiple subjects, including violence against women, the use of women as decoration, and stereotypical archetypes like the infamous “damsel in distress” frequently found in video games and other forms of entertainment media.

Ordinary Women: A Brand New Series

Sarkeesian’s work has caused her to become a major figure in games criticism for her hyper focus on representation and portrayal. And now, with the second season of Tropes vs. Women wrapping up later this year, she’s in the process of shifting her focus to an all-new video series called Ordinary Women, a series dedicated to celebrating the lives and accomplishments of great women in history.

Ordinary Women is a series Sarkeesian has placed on the back burner for some time to focus on Tropes vs. Women and building the Feminist Frequency organization. But she feels now is the best time to bring it to fruition.

“ ...it’s important to tell the stories of these women who have been written out of history.

In this series, Sarkeesian and her team want to not only tell great stories about female inventors, creators, and innovators, but also take lessons from these women’s lives and evaluate how they’re applicable today.

“I really think it’s important to tell the stories of these women who have been written out of history,” she says, mentioning how many prominent female figures have been omitted from conventional history lessons and relegated to being in the background.

“[With Ordinary Women] we’re saying ‘No, that’s not true. Women have always been doing incredible things above and beyond, because they have had to overcome so many odds to get to do the things they’ve been able to accomplish.’ It’s a history lesson, and a connection to the things we face today.”

“ It’s easier to accept time travel and high fantasy in a game than a leading female character.

“I really want to bring young people back into my audience. One of the things that happened with Tropes is that the episodes got really dark, because there is an enormous amount of violence against women and really awful sexualization, and some things that are not age appropriate for younger members of my audience,” she says.

“So, bringing them back in, where these are totally appropriate for multiple age groups, and we can bring it to elementary schools and high schools and colleges. It’s something I think people of all ages can really find enjoyable.”