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Religion in video games: more problematic than reality?

Templars from the Siege of Masyaf, Assassin's Creed 1

Via Kotaku, Aliasalpha and Glendon Mellow both brought to my attention a study by Greg Perrault, a doctorate student in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, which claims that video games present a problematized view of religion that is somehow unique amongst other media. More specifically, it is that these video games which feature religion also feature violence.

Perreault examined five recent video games that incorporate religion heavily into the storyline. The video games he studied were “Mass Effect 2,” “Final Fantasy 13,” “Assassin’s Creed,” “Castlevania: Lords of Shadow” and “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion”. Perreault found that all of these video games problematize religion by closely tying it in with violence.

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Religion in video games: more problematic than reality?

Gender studies homework: NVAWS and “think of the men!”

DavidByron, antifeminist troll extraordinaire, in a moderated comment on this post has described the National Violence Against Women Survey as an “own goal against feminists” by virtue of its defining rape in terms of actions, not in terms of the perceived transgression. The reasoning behind doing the survey this way is that people are less likely to report such transgressions if they’re unaware that lines have been crossed or that merely lacking consent or having been coerced into consent actually counts as rape.
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Gender studies homework: NVAWS and “think of the men!”

The Disadvantages of Being a Man

Before I start on this post, nothing I say here is intended to be a slight on people fighting for equality from the perspective of other genders or sexes. I intend this as an acknowledgement of the many ways that men are disadvantaged by the same societal mores that disadvantage women in other, additionally serious (and in many instances more serious) ways. I am a feminist as well as an egalitarian, and I approach these issues with those ideals as my starting point. This is in no way an attempt at drawing a false equivalency between the issues the various genders and sexes encounter.

The patriarchal society we find ourselves in today is a significantly eroded one, where the patriarchy finds itself under attack from almost every angle, but it remains a patriarchy still. Thanks to the monumental efforts of the feminist and civil rights movements, not to mention the recent secular pushback against religious authoritarianism and its adherents’ less than progressive ideals about women’s role in society, what was once a society that prided itself on its white male hegemony is now a more pluralistic one, though far from egalitarian. This patriarchy still exists, and societal pressure for men and women to conform to specific gender roles still has the very inertial effect on forestalling progressive change.

And while these gender roles have many powerful side-effects with regards to women and their sexual self-determination, men are not wholly insulated from the splash damage. In fact, I strongly believe that these gender roles are largely responsible for all of the gender related issues that all sexes and genders experience today.
Continue reading “The Disadvantages of Being a Man”

The Disadvantages of Being a Man

Breitbart calls for Tea Party to begin civil war: “Fire the first shot”

Andrew Breitbart calls for violence against liberals, claiming that the military will back Tea Partiers like himself if they manage to incite an honest-to-goodness shooting war, not just an information war:

“I’m under attack all the time. They call me gay, there are death threats… There are times where I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot.’ Bring it on. Because I know who’s on our side. They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns… I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with.

Then he claimed that some senior military officials have personally assured him that they’ll join the right wing in a civil war.

“And I have people who come up to me in the military, major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’

And yet, during the Bush era, disagreeing with the President was an act of treason. Calling for violence is, I expect, fine! Just fine!

Breitbart calls for Tea Party to begin civil war: “Fire the first shot”