Feminist blogger to visit USU

Anita Sarkeesian, a media critic and blogger, will speak to Utah State University students during Common Hour in the Taggart Student Center auditorium Wednesday. Sarkeesian is a Canadian-American feminist who speaks out about the portrayal of women in video games.

Sarkeesian is flying in from Burkley, California to speak with students about gender equality in the world of video games. She has been at the center of discussions about misogyny in video game culture and online harassment since she launched a fundraising campaign for the video series “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” in 2012 to look into how women are represented in video games.

Sarkeesian feels that women in video games are too sexualized, and would like to see video games bring out a more realistic view of women. Her initiative started a war of sexist harassment and personalized attacks against Sarkeesian, including an internet game called “Beat up Anita Sarkeesian.”

But this just drove her motivation, posting the harassments on her website “Feminist Frequency.” People responded by donating to her project, she received over $150,000.

Ann Austin, director of the Center for Women and Gender, helped to organize and plan the event. She said there are two reasons the center decided to bring Sarkeesian to USU: the first to bring to realization how deep biases and feelings about women are and to bring out the highlighted biases and misconceptions that are everywhere.

“We want to expose social justice issues,” she said. “Some people don’t even know about them.”

Sarkeesian wants women to be looked at as realistic beings in video games instead of sex idols. Feminism is about equal opportunities for men and women alike and that is what Sarkeesian will be speaking about, though her focus is on the video game world. That’s what this common hour is about, equality in the portrayal of men and women.

After Sarkeesian’s remarks, members of the audience will be invited to participate in a Q-and-A. The questions asked will be submitted by the audience on cards then read aloud by Austin. This allows those who wish to remain anonymous in their questions to do so as well as to weed out the hostile questions that are usually asked aloud.

—kaitblue@yahoo.com
Twitter: @skittles1313