#notyourshield, a users’ guide,

“Public relations” is the biggest “fuck you” that real feminism ever endured.

The art of public relations appoints men and women into positions of power, where their genders will be the most effective at deflecting criticism. Perpetuating and forcing adherence to gender roles is the only thing that keeps them employed. They stockpile maleness and femaleness, and spend it as currency to win over a public who catches them and their friends pulling some heinous shit.

It’s usually maleness that gets things done; people listen to men, and they ignore women, in many topics of conversation. Femaleness is great for getting sympathy, or when it’s time to talk about gender. People rarely care what a woman has to say, but they hate it if a woman gets hurt. Women—after all—are children, and it’s the patriarchs’ jobs to protect them.

If you’re a feminist like me, you know that “misogyny” is one of the most effective words that the PR patriarchs every co-opted. If you think the patriarchy doesn’t exist and I’m full of shit, you likely still believe that being called a “misogynist” without proof or reason is a real problem.

The reason #notyourshield is important to me is because it harkens back to the era of real feminism again. Women do not need to be leveraged by “white knights” and public relations firms, as a means to avoiding criticism. They do not need to wield femaleness as a tool, to silence critics. In so doing, they create a trauma-addicted, shame-addicted culture that harps on people’s differences and monetizes those differences instead of celebrating them. When people worry about their “shield”, they focus on privilege and oppression and gender instead of humanity. An abuser is not humane; to discuss an abuser’s gender or privilege is derailment.

#notyourshield is for minorities who no longer want to be gambled for the sake of public relations. If Zoe and Anita were real feminists, they wouldn’t want to be anyone’s shield either. They would be huge proponents of this hashtag and this movement. As it stands, however, they welcome the glancing blows of the public, if it satisfies others in their industry. Their niche in the patriarch is comfortable.

#notyourshield is for our white male allies too, of which we have plenty. Consider carefully what you say and how you say it, though. After all, you’ve not been used as a shield by these people. They think you’re under heel. Sure, you’re sick and tired of seeing your friends exploited as social currency, but your friends’ voices will speak volumes to “SJW” paternalist scumbags. Your white male voice cannot do that–and that’s nobody’s fault but theirs.

It’s shit—but if we beat them at their own game, by their own sexist rules, our victory becomes all the sweeter.

But it’s not about Zoe Quinn!,

People were finding out about Joshua Boggs’ wife, TFYC, the boyfriend, and the other victims of Zoe’s abuse and manipulation. Things were looking grim. A series of articles from her industry friends helped salve the burn, for a time. However, human curiosity is no match for censorship and derailment. Note that her victims didn’t “pull an Anita” and capitalize off of it. They could have, but they didn’t. Also, they do not have many connections in the media or gaming scene, so it’s tough to tell how far it’d have gotten them.

So they summoned up Anita after ten days or so. She posts a video. She posts a conversation from a mysteriously-new Twitter user named jdobbsz, from an unlogged account, who promptly vanishes. This one post gives her warrant to call Twitter, inform the media, and vacate her home. Oh and, eventually, inform actual police officers.

Zoe Quinn’s public relations worked. As it stands, if you talk about Zoe, you look like a nut-job to the thousands of people who got dragged into the conversation after Anita arrived. These people never saw how the situation began and they never will. Media agencies won’t report it, for fear of being the industry’s black sheep.

The public relations worked, because people still don’t view women and men as equals. That’s the bottom-line.

So, yes. It’s not about Zoe Quinn anymore. Why? Because she’s gotten off the hook without apologizing for being an abuser, a manipulator, a charity-attacking jerk, for censoring Reddit and 4chan, and all that other shit. The least we can all do is keep #GamerGate and #notyourshield going, to ensure this never happens again. But—mark my words—as long as there is a public and they need to be manipulated, gender will be the first casualty. Until real feminism wins. Until gender isn’t dragged into the discussion every time a woman shows up.

Maybe someday, people will judge us for our words instead of our genitals. Promise me this: If I fuck up, don’t check my privilege, tumblr. Don’t ask my gender. Don’t check the color of my skin.

Check the content of my character.

(Fun fact: Nine out of ten games journalists cannot properly attribute that quote!)

On why we don’t see women characters in games (a horrible love letter to Anita, don’t read this shit),

Finding a woman in a video game is like playing “Where’s Waldo”. The 25,000 characters you kill from point A to point B are basically all men. Why? Because no one gives a shit what happens with these men. But when it’s a woman, you have to put her under a microscope: Is she a victim? Are they saying all women are victims?! Is she evil? Are they saying all women are evil?! Is she completely devoid of flaws? She’s an unbelievable, non-human character! Is she talkative? What a chatty bitch!

Make it a man, and you won’t hear any of these complaints. Not from men or women or anyone. Moreover, if someone complains about a male character, they don’t feel uncomfortable in voicing their criticisms. Complaining about men, talking about men, killing men, what men are sexually attracted to, laughing at men’s misfortune, celebrating men’s heroism. It’s only safe discussing men and showing the male perspectives. Both masculine nitpicking and hyperactive feminist critiques helped create this problem, where female characters cannot be laughed at, celebrated, hurt, helped, or hold conversations without stepping on toes of every gender.

As a result, game devs don’t give women enough screen time to demonstrate how nuanced and human they really are. And it’s all out of fear. Fear of men who need women to be presented a certain way; fear of women who need women to be presented another way; fear of feminists who need women to be presented some other way. This new branch of gamer faux-feminists, thinking they understand fuck-all, just adds another layer to the Superbowl Sunday seven-layer bullshit dip.

Here’s Adam “Must Help Zoe!” Sessler baring his opinions on social justice:

http://www.g4tv.com/videos/39566/best-nude-scenes-in-video-games/

Oh, whoops. Nah, that’s just a list of great tits. Looks like he gets to have his titty cake, and support Anita too.

This hypocrisy is not uncommon. When we’re not coming for their jobs, game journalists and the gaming media will sell you three types of women: Strong, sexy, or victim. The first category seems great, until you realize that “strong female character” is basically meaningless. Motherfucker, have you ever heard of a “strong male character”? Nah—it’s a presumption that male characters are strong. Show us something more. Make the character human.

As women become a larger component of the gaming scene, game journalists must find ways to sell these pre-existing games to women. But it’s difficult! So what do they do? They sell the women a message about gaming, in the hopes they’ll still buy the same old games. The message achieves none of its goals, because it doesn’t have to. This disconnect between the message and the product is what Anita and her ilk thrive on.

The meta-textual irony of Anita is amazing. She talks about how gamers, in playing their Mario games, have come to see women as victimized damsels in distress who lack agency. She then professes she’s a victim after she receives the usual celebrity bullying from Internet trolls, which she ought to have the agency to ignore like everyone else. Later, a bunch of Mario fans rush in to save her, and she profits. Either she’s oblivious, or Andy Kaufmann has faked his own death and lives on as Anita in 2014. It’s legitimately brilliant.

On @jennatar,

Jenna is a gamer who likes to write and who was pulled into these issues after Anita showed up. She was influenced by a home-brewed narrative about misogyny, it successfully enraged her, and she felt the need to come to Zoe’s aid. It’s not her fault that her contemporaries had already spun this message of villainy about us.

People like Jenna—good people—will be set as opposition to #GamerGate, because they are passionate. Passion is often good! But passion is also power, to any public relations expert that can harness it. When you approach a journalist about their misconceptions; be polite, be honest, and be rational. If they still call it harassment, remember that it’s because an author’s words are like their children. It’s tough to face that kind of criticism. There are enough of us that our volume alone will appear like harassment—that is not our intention, but our volume is the only thing that gives us agency.

Jenna’s a great person. She always has been and, whatever her opinions, she always will be. Getting her to change her mind would have been a victory. Getting her disenfranchised about writing is a failure, on all of us. People will tell the gamers that “solidarity” is why everyone on the inside did what they did. The world is replete with friends of friends of friends, who can’t risk insulting each other. Ethics and facts, on the other hand, are hard to come by.

This industry will tear people down. This fifth estate will wreck every life it touches; you either get chased out like Jenna, learn to manipulate the system like Zoe, or become the enemy of your own industry by saying the things they don’t want to hear. Internet journalism turns every topic into a battlefield. Do whatever you can to build these writers back up.

On @CHSommers,

Christina Sommers is a scientist first and a feminist second. That’s basically how all feminists should have gotten their start. We’re supposed to analyze social systems, aggregate data, and apply that data. It was an application of data that first revealed women weren’t equal to men. It was science that made us realize feminism was necessary. The kind of feminism she calls for genuinely helps women and also helps men.

If the third wave of feminism kept to its mission statement, it would align with Christina’s goals. Third wave feminism was supposed to analyze the systems that produce oppression and remove them, creating equality. Gender is not a zero-sum game! Shit, it’s not even a game at all! Everyone can win! If there is shit you’d say to a man that you would never say to a woman, you’re not treating them equally. If you notice a pattern of behavior that denies women opportunities or resources, you’ve detected sexism. If you observe an industry that promotes men for their intellect and ambition but economizes women for their sexuality, you’re witnessing a patriarchal arrangement. But if you notice a pattern of behavior inhibiting men or black people or any other group, you need to take note of that also.

Look up some stats sometime! Women are still the most frequent victims of rape and property crimes. We can reduce those numbers. Men are still the most frequent victims of violent crimes and murder. We can reduce those numbers. Outside the Western world, women are denied many of the property rights and civil liberties that men enjoy. We can get everyone those rights. Men are often treated poorly in family law, largely due to perceptions about women as “caretakers” and men as “providers”. We can alter those perceptions.

This insipid “battle of the sexes” kicks off every time we need to talk about an issue where men and women are both involved. As it stands, we can’t do anything.

But if we ignore gender politics and start looking at real science and cooking up real solutions to real problems,