Thoughts on She Said Yes

Sixteen years have passed since the Columbine Massacre; it’s still a devastating thing to know that no student is truly safe in the education system with the news of school shootings and students getting attacked and injured at school more frequently. I didn’t think much of what happened since I was still in gradeschool and felt fairly safe in my environment. However now that I go to college that’s literally less than a mile from Mexico, have friends living in Matamoros Mexico who live a life of safety and security during the day on the school campus and a nightmare on the other side of the bridge at night, I can’t help but feel very weak.

Shortly after I had reverted from atheism to being catholic when I was seventeen a friend of mine introduced me to the band Flyleaf and the song Cassie caught my attention. I don’t know why, but I felt that I was destined to read the book She Said Yes based on Cassie Bernell. I knew at that point that the misunderstanding that Cassie was a martyr wasn’t true, but something called me to read the book anyways.

I think it’s one of the most important books I’ve ever read; not so much that I need to know about saying Yes to God every day of my life (that was a big message I got from the book though), but that Cassie was like me. She was religious yes, but she was a person too. She liked books, did homework, went to school, and the last words said to her mother were ‘I love you too mom’. I think something important to get out of the book is that for a while Cassie wasn’t so different from her peers Eric and Dylan.

I think the whole thing is sad still, I think of the fact that at this point Cassie, Eric, Dylan, and everyone else could be in their thirties, groaning over the mundane of facebook, tagging each other in wedding photos, and those things just weren’t meant to be.

The Internet and Jerks

Let’s just skip padding and say that there’s alot of jerks on the internet. There’s also alot of opinions, most of them being illiterate and mean spirited. No this isn’t about a personal experience, I’ve learned my lesson with the internet and it’s jerks, this is about a woman named Anita Sarkeesian and a game reviewer I decided to stop watching around February.

First let me say I have a great amount of respect for Anita Sarkeesian. I have learned alot from her videos on feminism and gender equality and appreciate her work very much. There are some things I disagree with, but should the opportunity present itself that I can actually have a conversation with her I would like to discuss them in a appropriate and educated manner. It’s not news that she’s had negative backlash from the gamer community for her critique of the portrayal of woman in gaming being treated as damsels in distress, sex objects, totally worth killing, and secondary to male protagonists. My reasoning for supporting her and being a feminist? I know what it’s like to be discriminated against based on race and sexual orientation. From those experiences I would rather no one ever be discriminated against.

Anita Sarkeesian was recently named one of Time Magazines most influential people; some boys in the gaming industry are not happy about that. One of them being a game reviewer I use to be a fan of. I won’t say his name because that leads to trolling, name calling, and negative feed back on alot of parties. I’ll give this video game reviewer respect and privacy. It all started about last January; my dad had just been diagnosed with cancer, before then I was in a bad position emotionally concerning a former boyfriend, and just really wanted something to feel happy again. I had just gotten into gaming and was debating on getting a Wii Fit, after looking through youtube I found this reviewers channel and found him charming and a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda. I had been warned by another friend that this guy was probably a jerk in real life under the guidance that “no one is that handsome and nice in real life”.

I gave this reviewer the benefit of the doubt; he had some different interests compared to my own. He hates Harry Potter with a passion, hates anime, and is a little too fond of collecting large amounts of shoes. Then his opinions started popping up when i started following him on twitter and tumblr. He started becoming less and less charming, granted he had his own point of view on what feminism was based on the thoughts and opinions of other feminists. More and more posts began to show though that despite being a fairly nice guy, this individual was part of the gaming community that attacked Anita Sarkeesian.

I stopped following him in February because of a live stream he was doing where he bragged about “rocking the world of an actress playing Aurora/Sleeping Beauty orally” leading me to realize what he really was. I popped in a view of his tumblr and twitter once in a blue moon because despite him being an awful person had a good idea of what games were pretty good. Then today happened.

He began directly attacking Anita Sarkeesian directly on twitter pissed off over Time Magazine recognizing her. I didn’t bother reading the rest, but it was very annoying. Not annoying to see another person taking cheap shots at someone who worked hard to where she is now, but studied harder than most people do to get her degrees and fought to have this injustice recognized while this gamer is just a ballet dancer who reviews games and evidently gives oral to woman who work at Disney theme parks.

The depressing thing is I do have male friends that share the whole “there is no gender inequality. It’s all in your head” attitude, that roll their eyes when I begin to speak about feminism. THe kinds of guys that don’t accept that their perspective of the world might be wrong.

I’m not sure how to end this blog post, but I will say that this isn’t the end of  the debate and I hope for the success in Anita’s mission.