Helen Lewis - Ubisoft

[MondayYogurt]

Gaming related, therefore naturally leaning towards anti-women (Gamergaters are misogynists and generally TRAs in my experience - any opportunity to subjugate women is gleefully enjoyed).

Yet another twitter led cancellation: games company Ubisoft (home of apparently endemic sexual harassment www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-21/ubisoft-sexual-misconduct-scandal-harassment-sexism-and-abuse ) has removed Helen Lewis from some podcasts because of her previously expressed feminist views.

Next cancellation target is Ian Dunt, for defending her right to free speech.

Influential website Kotaku (trans editor Riley Macleod) is as ever at the heart of these storms.

Gaming baseline hates women, particularly any stepping out of line. They then become 'Nazis', 'fascists', and are allowed to be publicly destroyed.
The only acceptable women are camgirls, sexy cosplayers, handmaidens and transwomen.

...you do realise that Ubisoft can do whatever the hell they want and that this ain’t an attack on freedom of speech.

Simple as that. Anyway. Back to actual things that matter...

@Conniethesensible

...you do realise that Ubisoft can do whatever the hell they want and that this ain’t an attack on freedom of speech.

Simple as that. Anyway. Back to actual things that matter...

The first part is undoubtedly true - ubisoft can do whatever it wants on its own platform. That's capitalism for you.

However, that doesn't mean that one can't usefully make a feminist analysis of the choices ubisoft is making. Are they purely market driven? Do they reflect certain pre-existing prejudices within the gaming community? Does the gaming community have a history of sexism, or is it just all a massive coincidence that women are subject to all sorts of scrutiny/harrassment if they "step out of their lane" (where staying in their lane appears to be "be an honorary bloke or ladette/stick to things like candycrush/be hypersexualised".)

Anyway, what actual things that matter would you suggest we discuss instead? Always interested when someone comes in with "shutdown 101" in the form of "haven't you got better things to be worrying about"? Because it always presupposes that (a) one can't be concerned about more than one thing at once and (b) one isn't actually doing real stuff in the real world too (my background is as a trade union activist fighting for equal pay and better childcare - what's yours?)

@wellbehavedwomen “just read the New Yorker piece recently on abortion follow-up, where the journalist earnestly explains that the term 'woman' is used only because in this instance, all the pregnant people in the study identified as such.”

Oh that has just made me so sad. The New Yorker, FFS.

...you do realise that Ubisoft can do whatever the hell they want and that this ain’t an attack on freedom of speech.

Are you from the US? I hear this line of argument all the time That somehow free speech only matters if the government is the force that is curbing it. This is such capitalist / neoliberal nonsense.

it implies that it’s fine for anyone to use force and threats to curtail or coerce speech as long as they are not a representative of a government? Well in that case it’s worth asking why do we have freedom of expression in the first place?

For me it has to do with power to coerce or threaten, which corporations have as well as government. Indeed in capitalism corporations could be more coercive than governments towards their employees.

Personally I’m in favor of more protections for employees from their employers not fewer, because I actually care about workers rights unlike TRA “leftists” who are capitalist schills. In my opinion, Employers should be able to fire employees for failure on the job, not for completely unrelated opinions or no reason at all.

The answer to speech you don’t like is more speech unless we’re talking literal threats.

Furthermore, Ubisoft can fire Helen but we are also free to state we the think they are full of shit for doing so. Also we are free to boycott their products and make a huge stink of it. Sadly under capitalism we are left with no other remedy.

I do find it amusing that people who call themselves leftists or even communists use the tools of capitalism against their 'opponents'.

I suppose it's all part of having an identity-drive existence rather than one based on reality.

*driven

Are you from the US? I hear this line of argument all the time That somehow free speech only matters if the government is the force that is curbing it. This is such capitalist / neoliberal nonsense.

It's bizarrely paradoxical. A country's founders recognised how important the principle was that they baked it into the new country's constitution. Back in the 1700s - very progressive. And, being liberal, the constitution can only mandate the government's behaviour, not the people's.

But then a bunch of current people conclude that because their constitution only limits government behaviour that somehow it's only bad when the government does it.

No, it's a universal principle. Your founders recognised why freedom was important. Not "freedom from government" specifically.