Sociologists are interested in the workings of power. How is inequality produced and sustained? What discursive and institutional forces uphold it? How are obvious injustices made invisible or legitimized? Why is it so hard to change hearts, minds, and societies?<\/p>\n
How does all this work?<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, a sliver of insight was posted. It\u2019s a clip of a speech by Anita Sarkeesian in which she reveals what it\u2019s like for one person to be the target of sustained, online harassment.<\/p>\n
In 2009, Sarkeesian launched Feminist Frequency<\/a>, a series of web logs in which she made feminist arguments about representation of women in pop culture. In 2012, she launched a kickstarter<\/a> to fund an ambitious plan to analyze the representation of women in video games. This drew the attention of gamers who opposed her project on principle and thus began an onslaught of abuse: daily insults and threats<\/a> of rape and murder, photoshop harassment<\/a>, bomb threats, and a video game<\/a> in which her face can be beaten bloody, just to mention a few examples. Last fall she canceled<\/a> a speech at Utah State University because someone threatened to commit \u201cthe deadliest school shooting in American history\u201d if she went on. It\u2019s been brutal and it\u2019s never stopped.<\/p>\n So, is this power at work? Has she been silenced? And has her larger project \u2013 awareness of sexism and misogyny in video games \u2013 been harmed?<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n As an individual, Sarkeesian has continued to speak out about the issue, but how she does so and with what frequency has been aggressively curtailed by the harassment. In the four-and-a-half minute clip, with the theme \u201cWhat I Couldn\u2019t Say,\u201d she talks about how the harassment has changed how she engages with the public. I offer some tidbits below, but here\u2019s the full clip:<\/p>\n