Well, I, for one, am glad our attempt to spread awareness about a serious issue has inspired people to argue about acronyms and pick nits about format. Truly we have made a positive impact on the world.

Hey!

Hey, I was in that class! I helped write this thing!

It's a bit surreal seeing it on BoingBoing.

Yo, I already know that if I were the one playing GTA, I would not kill the goddamn hookers. It's not my sandbox experience that I'm worried about, it's the experience of immature teenagers whose view of society and of women is in its formative stages. In that respect, it's actually more valuable for me to have seen immature teenagers play the game than to have played it myself.

I understand that there are aspects of the gameplay that have nothing to do with misogyny that I have no experience with. I understand that there are perfectly, or at least marginally, acceptable parts of GTA. I even understand you are not required to kill the hookers. But you're allowed to and certainly not discouraged from killing the hookers, and I watched firsthand as a bunch of otherwise very nice teenage boys did so with gleeful abandon and made horrible dehumanizing comments about prostitutes.

I don't want to outlaw or ban or censor the game. I just want to draw attention to an especially problematic part of it, so that maybe one or two teenage boys out there will play the game and choose not to kill the hookers because they recognize it's misogynistic. I'm not sure why this makes people want to shout me down so hard.

Decius, I'm not sure what you're talking about with the whole "the game cannot be purchased by teenagers" thing. First of all, it obviously is purchased by teenagers (and non-teenagers alike) in spite of restrictions, and second of all, I really don't give a shit if teenagers buy it. I couldn't care less about the ratings system. I'm not sure why you're putting those particular words in my mouth, but whatever.

I have played video games. I have not played GTA. I have, however, been a spectator of GTA. Remember how I just said that I watched it at a party? Is my view invalidated because I wasn't the one pushing the buttons on the controller? I saw shit happen in the game for hours, and I saw the reaction it provoked from its target audience. But, no, I wasn't holding the controller. Of course, that was partially because after seeing what was in the game firsthand, I was uninterested in playing it. But since I didn't press any buttons, I guess I have no idea what I'm talking about.

#136 - It's not the true Scotsman fallacy to say "no true Christian doesn't believe in God," because that's the definition of Christianity. No true square has unequal sides. No true corpse breathes. Or whatever.

I'll concede, though, that there are some man-hating feminists, with the caveat that they are man-hating because they are still unequal with men when they believe that they deserve to be equal to men, which is my stated definition of feminism.

I'm glad you recognize they're a minority, though I'm not sure if you're using the phrase "slim minority" to mean something like 49% or something like 1%. I assure you it's much closer to the latter.

I'm also glad that being treated badly for your gender didn't make you bitter. Women are treated badly for our gender all the damn time, and a lot of us are bitter because of it (though that happens pervasively instead of just during a few incidents for a few years at college, so maybe it's not precisely comparable).

And lastly, I'm glad you (mostly) share the same espoused philosophy as feminism. I'd like to point out that the reason people identify with feminism over humanism is that feminism specifically acknowledges that while all humans deserve equality, women remain unequal and so need more agitation for their equality at this point in time.

But all that is beside the point, I suppose.

Decius, no one is arguing that the game should be banned or censored. We're just criticizing it. People have every right to buy, sell, or play it. We are just pointing out some things that we don't like about it. Is that okay with you?

Also, I don't think anyone is arguing that playing GTA will make people go out and kill hookers (I've read some of the responses in this thread more thoroughly than others, so I can't say for sure). I think people are railing against a strawman there. What I am arguing (and I won't speak for anyone else) is that glorifying or encouraging or even enabling misogyny affects attitudes, especially those of the young men who are primarily playing this game and whose culture tends toward misogyny in the first place.

I remember being at a party in high school with my boyfriend and a bunch of his friends where they were playing whatever version of GTA was out at the time. They were endlessly amused by the whole fucking hookers and then killing them thing, much more so than just killing random folks on the street, and made a lot of crude comments to that effect. Did I think any of those boys would grow up to murder a hooker? Not for one second. Did I think it was reinforcing a view that they had that prostitutes aren't actually people and you can treat them like trash because of that? Well, yeah, pretty much. And it's that view that leads certain, unhinged people to actually commit violence against prostitutes, which is kind of a widespread problem.

#91 - It's not a generalization to say that feminists want people to be regarded as people regardless of sex or gender. Feminism is about gender equality. That is its definition. It has a lot of different strands, but the thing - maybe the only thing - that unites those strands is gender equality. Saying that is a generalization is like saying, "You don't have to believe in God to be a Christian. That's a generalization."

Sister Y, I'd hardly classify Feministing as "academic feminism." It's a pop-feminist blog that explicitly deals with pop culture, not advanced theory. Plenty of us feminists, especially of the variety that frequent Feministing, are down with non-misogynistic porn and think Andrea Dworkin was a bit of a crazy person.

I hereby present Geekazoid and Skullhunter with seals of my approval as well.

#47 - Do you get any health-point-type benefits or similar from having sex with the hookers? Are there any women in the game who are not strippers or hookers? Are any of the strippers or hookers actual characters or do they just strip and hook? Why doesn't enabling something and then glorifying it in promos count as encouraging?

#18 - Umm, I'm not sure why you think feminism is responsible for "male psyche simplification." Feminism is against the gender essentialism that stereotypes men as brutes who can't control their instincts. Feminists want everyone to be considered "complex, intellectual beings who desire more out of life," regardless of sex or gender.

Also it is a mystery to me why #20 got disemvowelled, but I suppose that is why I'm not a moderator.

There is no patriarchy. Women hold the majority of political and social control, and always have.

I literally just spilled orange juice all over myself laughing at this. That is not an Internet expression of disbelief. I literally have orange juice down the front of my shirt.

Anyway, I'm not blaming GTA for making kids go on shooting rampages or some such shit. I'm just saying that encouraging a scenario in which you have sex with a prostitute and then kill her to get your money back is an example of misogyny. Fin.

Madprime, I now present you with a prize. The prize is my approval. Thank you for being awesome.

You get spam in foreign alphabets? I'm so jealous!

These girls are not standing on the very tips of their toes. I thought this was going to be some good professional ballet, and I'm a little disappointed.

I'm a (mostly) vegetarian just because I generally find meat repulsive. I had never heard words less appealing than "beef" and "pork" until today, when I learned the phrase "vat meat." (Which is not to say I don't think it's a good idea; I just still won't be eating any disgusting dead flesh, thankyouverymuch.)

I'm a regular Feministing reader, and was part of the barrage of Facebook/Myspace messages and emails that made this guy lose his position. I feel good about that. And now whenever future employers Google his name, they're going to find out about this horrible screed he sent. I feel good about that, too.

I would like to say for the record that the other people in that little Republican club were extremely gracious and courteous. They apologized profusely for Alex's behavior, and made him apologize, too (though his apology came off as that of a petulant second-grader, much like the original email he sent).

Most adorable attack ever! Poor little hedgehog...

Here's a video of Barry in action.

Personally, I'm holding out for Pinky the Pussycat before I make any purchases.

I came in here all fired up about this "western-style" crease, and then I got thoroughly educated. It was quite lovely, actually, and I'm glad to know it isn't an imitation of western eyes.

I still think it sucks, though. I'm usually against cosmetic procedures that try to change one's natural biological appearance to fit a cultural standard. I don't mean piercings/tattoos, which just add something to your appearance instead of trying to change it, and I don't mean makeup or high heels, which are only mild, topical changes. I mean stuff like boob jobs and, well...gluing your eyelids. I'm sure folks could pick nits with this stance, but you get the general argument.

Stuff like that is mainly used to make people (especially women) feel bad about themselves so that they'll buy some stupid, wholly unnecessary crap. Like eyelid glue.

That is atrocious, obviously, but it's also just very strange. I just flew out of San Francisco a couple days ago, and I have seven piercings, plus I was wearing a necklace. I had no problems. Ostensibly the nipple rings were deemed unsafe because they were under clothing and not visible, but I've never been told to get rid of my navel ring to go through security.

You really have to wonder if someone wasn't just power-tripping and had a dislike for nipple rings as strong as Allthegoodnamesaretaken's up there. "I disagree with a personal choice of yours that doesn't affect me in any way, and I'm in a position to fuck you over...Sweeeet!"

My mother is helping to organize the San Francisco version of that gala. I will tell her to get on the heart fountain right away.

Can somebody explain to me why swearing led to a $29,000 fine? Is it just for harassing the lawyer he was swearing at?

I'd like to think that if I had a daughter and bought her one of those straws, I'd just giggle to myself every time she used it. It looks like a dick...who fucking cares?

Oh, I thought this was gonna be some modern-day alchemy. I am so disappointed.

This is just...it's just dumb. It's just a bad idea. Why would you do this?

Last will and estimate?!

I want one!

Man, I wish that guy from the Cure would stop trying to write romance novels.

Yes. Letting fat people eat in public is exactly like becoming a bunch of poo-flinging monkeys. That is a totally apt comparison. I'm glad we could come to this agreement.

The Neimoller quote may be a bit melodramatic for the situation, but it seems pretty applicable to me. No one's saying social pressure is exactly equivalent to Nazis killing Jews, because obviously it's not. Lor Soong is just drawing a parallel about singling people out.

Telling fat people they can't eat in restaurants is coming after them. It's not coming after them to atrociously kill them, but it's coming after them nonetheless. It's deciding their bodies are unacceptable, even when their bodies are often something they have very little control over. It's almost like saying people with blue eyes should be banned from restaurants. It's a genetic trait, and sure you could go to a ridiculous effort to change that by getting colored contacts or something, but what's the point if you're not hurting anyone else?

I know people are making the argument that obesity does hurt the non-obese by affecting health care costs. But if you're against obesity purely for the way it economically affects the non-obese, then you should be wholeheartedly against this bill, which would eliminate tons of business from any restaurant with more than five seats, and would be quite bad economically for the non-obese.

I'm convinced that worrying about what you eat and viewing food as poisonous is much worse for your health than what you actually put in your mouth.

I totally agree. Then we go and build up so much social stigma around being fat that naturally heavier people can't help but stress out about what they eat, and then where does that get them? Wouldn't passing legal judgment on fat people by banning them from Mississippi restaurants only make things worse by stressing them out about their weight?

#45, I don't know that I could give you particularly precise details, as I don't usually eat meals with my sister. For a while, though, we were having lunch together twice a week, and she would have a salad and Diet Coke (which isn't "healthy" per se, but which doesn't contribute to obesity as far as I know) while I would have pizza and sugary sugary delicious juice. She monitors everything she eats and counts the calories in all her food, even if she has to go online before we go to a restaurant to find out how many calories there are likely to be in what she wants to order.

Personally, if maintaining my current weight required the level of vigilance my sister applies to her eating habits, I'd weigh much more. There is definitely a life-enjoyment trade-off for me. I'd rather enjoy my food non-obsessively (but moderately healthily) than be very thin. I just happen to be able to do both because of the way I'm built.

I'm not denying that there are some people who become obese through bad eating habits and lack of exercise, and that obesity can have negative effects on people's health. It's just that I think you have to examine it on a case-by-case basis, which makes a sweeping state-wide law ridiculous. Not that I think even lazy unhealthy fatties should be denied restaurant access, but a law like that would just be especially ludicrous because it would be impossible to tell which fatties were lazy/unhealthy, and which weren't.

play the fat-hate card and I'll trump that with the tough-love finesse.

I appreciate the fact that you are looking at it from a tough-love perspective, rather than a "eww fat people!" perspective, but I think there's something to be said about the fact that not every fat person is unhealthy.

Yes, there are definitely lots of people whose obesity negatively affects their health, but there are probably just as many people who are fat, healthy, and can't do anything about their weight.

I myself am a skinny bitch, but I know that no matter what I do - eat healthy, or eat junk food, exercise a lot, or sit on my couch all day - my weight does not change by more than three pounds or so. My body type dictates my weight, rather than the other way around.

I also know that my sister eats way healthier than I do and exercises probably twice or three times as much as I do, but still weighs thirty pounds more than I do. My sister is healthier than I am, but also fatter. Granted, she is not at the point where Mississippi restaurants would deny her service, but there is no reason to automatically assume that fat people are unhealthier than you and I.

What an utterly ridiculous proposal for a law.

First of all, it wouldn't stop fat people from eating unhealthy food. In fact, it would probably encourage them to order things like pizza that can be delivered.

Second of all, it would be horrible for the Mississippi economy. If obesity is as prevalent as this lawmaker claims, then restaurants are going to lose a big old chunk of their customers very quickly.

Plus fat hatred is dumb.

No, no, Takuan, that is not organized enough. I want a place specifically designated for rape. I mean, rape, as a sin, is going to put you in somewhere in Dante's inferno, but he doesn't even mention rape by name, I don't think. This Taoist/Buddhist hell has twice as many levels. It's just all-around a more efficient and more organized hell.

@ #10 -

I'm glad they have a place for rapists. Dante seems to have forgotten about rapists, and it is important to have a well-organized realm of eternal torture.

Re:#5 - Well, dang, you learn something new every day. That makes a little more sense, maybe as much sense as a crazy "race types" info page is going to make. Is there a similar deal for "sheik," do you think?

Re:#14 - First, the Mongolians were almost certainly not responsible for 9/11.

I didn't get that at all at first, but when I went back and looked at the page, I totally laughed out loud. Well, I mean, it was more of like a chortle or a snort, but it was an audible sound for sure. (Plus, Mongolians = Chinese, Japanese, Eskimo? What shoddy race-type organizers made this page?)

Bonus points for not being able to conceptualize a woman going to the moon.

And here I've been laboring under the impression that "raja" was a title, not a race.

Old books are quaint in small quantities, but they're pretty annoying when you have to deal with them all the time. I work in a library, and I can't wear a white shirt to work, because it will get old-book scum all over it. The books that are too fragile to stand on their own and have to be put in little book-sized boxes are the worst; it is such a pain in the ass to have to open and close the box to scan and stamp the book.

But I would point out that working at the library hasn't diminished my love for young to middle-aged books in the slightest. I still love shiny, smooth new covers, and I'm even fond of the nondescript academic uni-color binding with which they replace the original covers.

"Foul little man" indeed.

*sigh*

Welp, if we're getting rid of birth control pills and rings and patches, I guess outlawing condoms to protect the Spermatozoan-Americans is the next logical step.

Not that I think Huckabee will be our next president, or even the GOP nominee, but this man won in Iowa!

Antinous - The Pill pill? When has he said this?

(I ask not because I don't believe you, but because I want to be as educated as possible about this man's insanity. He will have to pry my birth control from my cold dead fingers.)

I love the illustration style, but it does look like her boob is slurping up that star, and it freaks me out a little bit.

Takuan, I 100% agree with you (and I have never smoked pot in my life).

In stark contrast to that deformed pig a few posts ago, the salamander is hideous.

Also, I don't trust any species that lives exclusively in human burial grounds.

Second cutest miscreant ever, after the cyclops kitty.

The Mickey Mouse sticker really completes the ensemble.

It's actually UC Berkeley, as in University of California.

/pedantry

Although I go to their rival school, so perhaps I should let any non-flattering falsehoods float by without protestation.

Didn't these people see I Am Legend?

It's hard to really drum up any sympathy for a Rolling Stones lawsuit; they're not exactly hurting for dough.

But jeez, is that lazy design work! Couldn't they have just tweaked it a little? Ostensibly the reason the logo works for McDonald's is that you eat McDonald's food with your mouth. Was there no possible way to make a marginally original logo involving a mouth?

I think those are decidedly more demonic than angelic, but quite cool.

I sort of almost think this is a lie based on the tall tale contest in The Virginian. But, hey, I have been to a seahorse farm, so I'm sure someone has pulled off a frog farm at some point in time.

Too bad going through airport security is inherently scary and enraging. I feel like I probably show those emotions on my face every time I fly.

#7 - I totally remember those. "Hello Happy Bear" is the in-joke between me and my sister. I must have blocked "Hello Lunchmeat" out of my memory. It's pretty gross-sounding...

Also, a boyfriend of mine definitely had a Choco-Cat wallet, and I bought him a Badtz Maru keychain as a gift once.

# 16 - Hilarious.

I'm going to print out those photos, caption them with Captain Beefheart lyrics a la LOLCats and leave them on the windshields of people I dislike.

This is perfect. You are perfect.

#1 - I agree with you. It's interesting; I totally have a kneejerk reaction to consider it not as serious when a woman molests a man as when a man molests a woman. Then I think about it, and I realize that's pretty much bullshit. Although I can't help but think it's more threatening for a man to molest a woman, because it's exponentially more likely that he'll rape her than that a woman molesting a man would rape him.

There's also probably something to be said about the fact that women harassing men is much less widespread and gets way more media coverage. If you look at the statutory rapists listed on Wikipedia, for example, they're almost all women, even though there are way more male statutory rapists than female ones. It sucks that men who harass women are considered so average that it barely warrants any media attention.

That "at least he knows who's been naughty" remark is pretty icky, but at least she was actually charged with something, so it wasn't laughed off entirely.

You have to wonder if that's really a good idea. How long before we have tummytubs for adults?

We already do. It's called grad school.

Oh archaic jokes about the zodiac that I don't understand at all, where would I be without you?

PS Pregnancy as a disfiguring deformity! Harsh!

Totally agree about the ridiculous sample size and absence of women who like women.

I'm also especially fond of the sentence, "It's now 100 years since Freud first speculated about female sexuality." Wow, female sexuality has been around for a hundred whole years? And it originated with a man? Who knew!

No, nothing is wrong "by any standard." Sorry. That's what makes different standards different. There are some things that are wrong by your standard

I think this is a semantic trip-up. Saying "by any standard" is a little broad, because there are murderers and rapists who don't think there's anything wrong with murdering and raping. But there are some things that I personally feel should be wrong by any standard. Things like murder, rape, racism, oppression of women, etc. And I don't think it is because I am a Westerner. I think it is because those things are just wrong.

So I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree. Nothing you can say is going to make me change my mind about feeling misogyny is wrong in any culture, and nothing I can say is going to make you change your mind about complete moral relativism. There's no point in quibbling.

One last thing: You can rest assured I am not going to try to actively export my views on this to Japan. I'm not going to go protesting fashion bandages in the streets. I just feel that I need to speak up whenever I see what I perceive as misogyny; otherwise, I feel I'm complicit in it.

But demeaning something can also add to its sexual appeal, and that's what they're selling.

We are in agreement on this point. I guess what we disagree on is that I am uncomfortable with the notion of sexualizing, objectifying, and commodifying people by demeaning them.

Also, these women in the pictures probably don't see it that way, but as a golden opportunity to further their careers.

I'm sure that's almost entirely true. But I don't think a woman can't endorse something misogynist. I think, for example, that Ann Coulter is pretty misogynistic. The way I see it, just because some women endorse it doesn't make it any less sexist or any more acceptable.

With your particular bias you may read this book as anti-woman or whatever, but I'd definitely say within the context of Japanese culture it is aimed at men who respect women who are playing through their pain.

This is really interesting. Totally something I hadn't considered before.

Do you think it is the same when the women who are putting on bandages are actually fine, and are consciously using it as a way to get men to talk to them? Is it demeaning for women to fake being strong-despite-injury to please men? (That is not supposed to sound like a sarcastic rhetorical question, it is totally genuine. I'm trying to learn more about this as I am clearly out of the cultural loop.)

@7: I was not at all trying to suggest that this sort of thing only happens in Japan. I don't feel the need to spread Western culture to "poor, benighted Asia." I just feel that misogyny needs to be eradicated in all cultures. I think it is every bit as prevalent in Western culture as it is in any other culture. I can see a tiny bit of latitude in terms of what defines women as equal in a given society, but don't tell me that I have no right to judge misogyny just because it's in a different culture from mine. The way I see it, that's like saying we have no right to judge the caste system in India, because it's not our culture.

From the Mainichi Daily News article: "In our age of gender equality, the number of strong-willed women has increased. Men still want to protect and look after women, though, so they seek out those who seem to be in need of help."

I call bullshit. This is not a way to express desire to protect women. It's a way to demean them by portraying them as weak, helpless, physically inferior.

But Uncle Jesse was so hot!

I dunno, "invisible can" is pretty funny. Just because a grotesque gelatinous hunk of artificial fruit isn't as cute as a kitten doesn't mean you have to discriminate against it.

Remember -- this is the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport ... maybe their music is ... toe-tapping?

That took me a second to get, and then I totally laughed out loud.

That is an ugly goddamn bear.

Man, we can't even keep the terrorists fully behind forbidden symbols. This war on terror is hopeless.