When I was young a dumb, I followed the anti-feminist YouTubers that used Anita Sarkeesian as their punching bag. I loved video games and bought into their idea that she was trying to ruin them. Now that I’m older and wiser, I can see that that was a load of baloney. I watched the original Tropes vs. Women in Videogames series and it was very level-headed and rational. There were a few things that the anti-feminist YouTubers said “well what about this???” and Anita actually covered that in the video but the YouTubers cherry picked and didn’t show the response. Anita has done a lot of good and has had so much hate and harassment that I feel she deserves a break.

I can hardly think of a better example of “the lady doth protest too much” than the responses that would get fired back at Anita. Completely unable to mask just how close to home the criticism hit them.

Oof, the last paragraph hit me hard:

“It gave me space to breathe a little more,” she said. “I remember a moment where I did get harassed, I don’t know what it was, but it was either a Twitter [message] or an email. And [when I saw it], I was like, Oh, that hurts. And then I was like, Wait a minute. That hurts. That’s cool. Being able to feel again, that’s a form of healing.” And by stepping away for a bit, she hopes to keep giving herself more and more space to grow.

I learned a lot from Anita Sarkeesian’s work, and it was a nice thing to see, growing up as a girl who had to justify my existence in the space, despite gaming making up a huge portion of my youth

Her videos about women in video games were mind-blowing. And I never forgot her Lego City vs. Lego Friends comparison. Smurfette-syndrome and damsel distress are words I didn‘t know before watching this channel.

Wait…that was still an thing?! I thought it died a long time ago.