[The E]

What would you do differently then? I mean, the problem here is that positive examples of the things criticized here are rather hard to come by in the first place. Giving them equal standing to the hundreds of negative examples would undermine the point that is being made on a subconscious level at least; and given that the whole premise of the series seems to be "Here are a few stereotypes that are overused, and here's why we need to be more aware of the implications being made by their use", not an attempt at devising measures to improve the situation, I think the general approach taken here is not that bad.

[NGTM-1R]

it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause

First, that is not an argument for her being wrong, it's an argument for someone's feelings being hurt by it being pointed out they're doing something wrong. That's not a valid...well, anything. It's especially not valid when it comes to artistic criticism. Ebert's job was not to speculate on the causes of why a movie was terrible, but to tell you why it was terrible.

Second, the assumption that a root cause is easily identifiable or even necessary. This is something way down there in the murky netherworlds of the human psyche. You're asking for root causes on something that a listing of causes would take longer than the actual video itself and not all would be applicable to every case and is generally a mess. This is not an engineering problem where diagnosis of fault is key to correction. This is a behavioral issue. Behavior faults lie in themselves because behavior is a choice. Causes may not be useful for correcting behavior, and may not be correctable themselves.

[Flipside]

it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause

First, that is not an argument for her being wrong, it's an argument for someone's feelings being hurt by it being pointed out they're doing something wrong. That's not a valid...well, anything. It's especially not valid when it comes to artistic criticism. Ebert's job was not to speculate on the causes of why a movie was terrible, but to tell you why it was terrible.

Second, the assumption that a root cause is easily identifiable or even necessary. This is something way down there in the murky netherworlds of the human psyche. You're asking for root causes on something that a listing of causes would take longer than the actual video itself and not all would be applicable to every case and is generally a mess. This is not an engineering problem where diagnosis of fault is key to correction. This is a behavioral issue. Behavior faults lie in themselves because behavior is a choice. Causes may not be useful for correcting behavior, and may not be correctable themselves.

And once again, you quote a few words from a sentence and try to treat it as a whole one. Stop that, it's annoying.

Allow me to finish that for you :

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin, it's easy and accurate to say that women don't want to feel like victims, but all it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause beyond the assumption that it is because men are doing it.

Basically, it's easy to point a finger at 'men' and say "You're doing it wrong!", but how many people, at the end of the day, are going to pay attention to that? As has been evidenced in here, people see 'feminist' and move on, so even though she is making valid points, people will automatically assume conflict of interest unless some attempt is made to moderate that viewpoint.

[Lorric]

I thought I'd get a look at that. I liked most of it.

The fundamental problem with thunderf00t's analysis is that he argues there are no "issues" here because games are made "to make a profit".

What thunderf00t misrepresents here is that he thinks it's all a big paranoia about a conspiracy theory where the giant "patriarchy" cartel tries to subjugate women, when in fact it's just capitalism trying to turn a profit (and what's wrong in that?).

But this wasn't discussed anywhere. It's a strawman. What she tries to argue is that there are tropes which are the most common in many, if not most, AAA games, without majorly discussing the reasons why. IOW, she's pointing out that there are problems here, as shown by sheer number of cases depicted. Elsewhere she makes it blatantly obvious she thinks the problem runs deep in our culture, that, IOW, it's ideology working without us being aware or conscious about it. There is no conspiracy ideation here.

Yes, there are counter examples (what a relief). But they function mostly as exceptions to the rules, not as evidence that the case is bollocks. It isn't bollocks, and seeing men mansplaining to women that there's nothing wrong in our culture from a feminist point of view, that it's all bollocks and so on is really, really sad.

His point isn't that there are no issues, it's that nobody thinks of this dogma that she's spouting when making games. Games are meant to be fun. Games are meant to please people. They do so. If they don't, they don't make money.

As the tropes go, she wants them wiped out. And that's wrong. The Damsel in distress trope is old, but it's still capable of being well used, and you're just stifling creativity if you remove it from a developer's arsenal. Every generation of gamers should be able to enjoy being the hero and saving the girl. That's why Double Dragon got it's remakes, because it's a classic. I haven't heard Double Dragion mentioned in years, but as soon as it came up I thought "Marian". I remembered the girl's name even though you barely see her.

I'll give you that the "bollocks" part was unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, but she's so arrogant, just telling you how you think and how the game makes you think and how you should think, and it doesn't work like that.

I think when people talk about man-hating feminists, they are talking more about this sort of thing.

Yes it's proof of the fact that there is no cause so right that you won't find an idiot following it rather than proof of "What feminism is really about" like some people claim, but there are people dragging down the cause they profess to have with this kind of drivel and it's silly to deny they exist.

Don't forget the type that will get offended if you hold a door open for them and the like.

She managed to squeeze eight pages of discussion from this board alone

The thing is, she's right in what she says, but then, in stories, everything is a caricature, not all scientists wear white coats and talk like Brains from Thunderbirds, not all soldiers have an IQ that seems to alternate from 'Hur-Hur he said "penetrate"' to 'I'm relabrating the Nanotech fibres now.. with my teeth!', often in the same soldier.

She's also right that it is the trope that is the problem, the 'maiden in distress' is one of the oldest, most deeply ingrained tropes out there, that'll take a lot to shift.

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin, it's easy and accurate to say that women don't want to feel like victims, but all it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause beyond the assumption that it is because men are doing it.

I'm not sure the trope is the problem. And even if it is, the only potential problems are overuse and laziness, problems related to the quality of gaming, not feminism.

That's exactly what she's doing, saying "This is wrong, that is wrong, this is what I believe and you must believe it as well." She's just pumping out dogma. When someone backs it up with medical science or something, then I'll start taking notice. I'm not even sure she does believe. This is something for everyone to think about, but she comes across as having no sincerity, no belief, no conviction to me.

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin, it's easy and accurate to say that women don't want to feel like victims, but all it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause beyond the assumption that it is because men are doing it.

This, I feel, is part of why so many people reacted so poorly to the videos. How do you expect people to react when you do nothing but criticize some of their favorite things? Pointing out problems is good and all, and obviously I don't think this justifies any of the abuse she received, but if she wants to do any convincing of people that wouldn't agree anyway she'll need to rethink how she approaches the issue.

Exactly. She does nothing to make us want to care about the issue, and she's not preaching to the converted here, she's trying to convert. She makes no effort to take the time and try and connect with her audience, but she does inspire many negative emotions. You can feel her contempt for gamers as well. I wonder if she even played those games.

[Flipside]

The trope is important I think, in that we are a borrowing culture, we take things from our past and try to adapt them for the moment. The problem is that certain sections of popular media throughout history have bought forward more than the concepts, but the characters also, so stories that originated in Hunter-Gatherer nations have got warped like Chinese whispers. The more detached we got from the reality of gender roles in ancient societies, the more warped our perceptions of them became.

[Lorric]

The trope is important I think, in that we are a borrowing culture, we take things from our past and try to adapt them for the moment. The problem is that certain sections of popular media throughout history have bought forward more than the concepts, but the characters also, so stories that originated in Hunter-Gatherer nations have got warped like Chinese whispers. The more detached we got from the reality of gender roles in ancient societies, the more warped our perceptions of them became.

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean. Are you saying characters in a game set in the past need to have the values of people living in that time?

[Polpolion]

I mean, the problem here is that positive examples of the things criticized here are rather hard to come by in the first place. Giving them equal standing to the hundreds of negative examples would undermine the point that is being made on a subconscious level at least;

Yeah, showing positive examples isn't at all what I meant when I said "she'll need to rethink how she approaches the issue", and wouldn't even help for the reasons you said. The entire format of how she's talking about the tropes I think is closer to the issue. But this brings us along to the next part of your post...

and given that the whole premise of the series seems to be "Here are a few stereotypes that are overused, and here's why we need to be more aware of the implications being made by their use", not an attempt at devising measures to improve the situation, I think the general approach taken here is not that bad.

Yep. There's nothing bad about this approach if you're just concerned with pointing out the issues with stereotypes, which is definitely important. The problem I see is when people watch these and get defensive and argue that there's nothing wrong with games for some reason or another, which I think could be lessened if she approached the issue with a bit more subtlety. Is she obligated to? Of course not, but I think it's just as important to address the population that would get defensive about this as it is to address people that just need to know about it.

*snip*

I'm going to be blunt here, Lorric. You're the exact person I'm talking about when I say "the population that would get defensive". I'm not going to try and do a point-for-point rebuttal of the things you said but no, she was not trying to convert the masses with these videos, that's the entire point I'm making. And no, that is not an excuse to continue to hold these beliefs.

[General Battuta]

Basically, it's easy to point a finger at 'men' and say "You're doing it wrong!", but how many people, at the end of the day, are going to pay attention to that? As has been evidenced in here, people see 'feminist' and move on, so even though she is making valid points, people will automatically assume conflict of interest unless some attempt is made to moderate that viewpoint.

Feminism doesn't target men, it targets the gender system, the patriarchy - a system which hurts both men and women.

The trope is important I think, in that we are a borrowing culture, we take things from our past and try to adapt them for the moment. The problem is that certain sections of popular media throughout history have bought forward more than the concepts, but the characters also, so stories that originated in Hunter-Gatherer nations have got warped like Chinese whispers. The more detached we got from the reality of gender roles in ancient societies, the more warped our perceptions of them became.

This sounds like some kind of narrative evopsych and so I have to caution you that it's probably a terrific oversimplification.

[Lorric]

I'm going to be blunt here, Lorric. You're the exact person I'm talking about when I say "the population that would get defensive". I'm not going to try and do a point-for-point rebuttal of the things you said but no, she was not trying to convert the masses with these videos, that's the entire point I'm making. And no, that is not an excuse to continue to hold these beliefs.

Why is that a bad thing? You just said in your previous post how do you expect people to react.

What's the point of the videos then if she's not trying to convert people? You just said in your previous post "How do you expect people to react when you do nothing but criticize some of their favorite things? Pointing out problems is good and all, and obviously I don't think this justifies any of the abuse she received, but if she wants to do any convincing of people that wouldn't agree anyway she'll need to rethink how she approaches the issue."

[NGTM-1R]

Stop that, it's annoying.

Stop assuming that just because I try to quote only the core portions of why your argument doesn't work, I'm not attempting to addressing your argument as a whole...and we've got a deal!

Basically, it's easy to point a finger at 'men'

This is a viewer assumption. Plenty of people have worked to perpetuate these stereotypes, a decent number of them were women (take the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing, most are usually considered romantic movies and if what comprises at least half of their target audience stopped seeing them they'd be a lot less viable). Everyone is getting called out here.

and say "You're doing it wrong!", but how many people, at the end of the day, are going to pay attention to that?

It's especially not valid when it comes to artistic criticism. Ebert's job was not to speculate on the causes of why a movie was terrible, but to tell you why it was terrible.

This deals with "art". Movies. Video games. It is artistic criticism. Eurogamer and RPS don't tell you, and typically don't even know, why a game turned out the way it did. All they can do is report on the finished product.

Now, I've read some criticisms that do attempt to explore why the work the in question is terrible. (I highly recommend Slacktivist's exploration of the Left Behind novels if you're into that.) But they typically come from a background where the critic is well-equipped to understand the creator and the work is illuminating as to the creator's thoughts because of a specifically revealing form of bad writing, lack of editorial filtering, or both.

However in this case, discussing things across a decently long span of time and lacking the budget or the ability to track down members of the production, asking someone to identify the root causes of the issues they're discussing is unreasonable of you. It's also (again) not something that artistic criticism usually does because we're not usually interested in it but rather whether we should spend our money on this object, or should usually be required to do, because there is no guarantee that anyone in the production will talk lest they be perceived as talking out of school.

As has been evidenced in here, people see 'feminist' and move on, so even though she is making valid points, people will automatically assume conflict of interest unless some attempt is made to moderate that viewpoint.

You can't be Writing Women Badly without Writing Badly.

Going back to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl example again, in the process of making the feminist case for why it is bad you also make an excellent case that it is simply bad to create such a character in general, as their actions are inhuman and their motivations bizarre. It is only the fact that such characters are almost (or) always female that makes the criticism feminist. (Because making women act in inhuman and bizarre ways implies women are inhuman and bizarre, natch.)

The viewpoint indicates that a certain kind of Writing Badly is being addressed. A similar kind of focused on-a-particular-set-of-issues criticism can be made in a lot of ways. I could start a Militarist Criticism movement where I examine a work every week for its failure to understand military or para-/pseudo-military structure when dealing with such. Or a Policist Criticism movement. You get the idea.

Looking for a specific form of failure is specialization, and it's up to the audience to apply their own critical thinking skills when coping with any criticism. If they are unwilling, that reflects poorly on them, not on the critic.

[Flipside]

Feminism doesn't target men, it targets the gender system, the patriarchy - a system which hurts both men and women.

Yes, but the moment you place a label on yourself you automatically isolate yourself from certain other groups, the problem is the label and its (inaccurate) connotations to certain people, even some feminists blur that line occasionally, often through frustration at the lack of progress.

This sounds like some kind of narrative evopsych and so I have to caution you that it's probably a terrific oversimplification.

It's a vast oversimplification, I agree, it completely misses out stuff like the effects of male-dominated censorship, religious influence etc over the centuries, but it's a short enough summary of what happened whilst being deficient of almost every detail.

[General Battuta]

I don't know if it is, though. I don't think hunter-gatherer societies were the model or ur-prototype for our gender system today, and even if some of them were, which ones? These societies are enormously diverse in the way they handle gender.

[Flipside]

Stop that, it's annoying.

Stop assuming that just because I try to quote only the core portions of why your argument doesn't work, I'm not attempting to addressing your argument as a whole...and we've got a deal!

Because the core of an apple without the flesh isn't a whole apple.

Basically, it's easy to point a finger at 'men'

This is a viewer assumption. Plenty of people have worked to perpetuate these stereotypes, a decent number of them were women (take the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing, most are usually considered romantic movies and if what comprises at least half of their target audience stopped seeing them they'd be a lot less viable). Everyone is getting called out here.

I'll refer you to the answer I gave Battuta, it's more a question of the affect labels have, there's a writer out there who got so fed up with his covers that he started posing in similar get-up :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21033708

He's not doing it because he is anything, he just found the covers annoying more than degrading, and started to show how silly they looked when the female character was replaced with a male one.

and say "You're doing it wrong!", but how many people, at the end of the day, are going to pay attention to that?

It's especially not valid when it comes to artistic criticism. Ebert's job was not to speculate on the causes of why a movie was terrible, but to tell you why it was terrible.

This deals with "art". Movies. Video games. It is artistic criticism. Eurogamer and RPS don't tell you, and typically don't even know, why a game turned out the way it did. All they can do is report on the finished product.

Now, I've read some criticisms that do attempt to explore why the work the in question is terrible. (I highly recommend Slacktivist's exploration of the Left Behind novels if you're into that.) But they typically come from a background where the critic is well-equipped to understand the creator and the work is illuminating as to the creator's thoughts because of a specifically revealing form of bad writing, lack of editorial filtering, or both.

However in this case, discussing things across a decently long span of time and lacking the budget or the ability to track down members of the production, asking someone to identify the root causes of the issues they're discussing is unreasonable of you. It's also (again) not something that artistic criticism usually does because we're not usually interested in it but rather whether we should spend our money on this object, or should usually be required to do, because there is no guarantee that anyone in the production will talk lest they be perceived as talking out of school.

I don't think the work is terrible really, I just have concerns as to its impact because people will assume a lack of impartiality.

As has been evidenced in here, people see 'feminist' and move on, so even though she is making valid points, people will automatically assume conflict of interest unless some attempt is made to moderate that viewpoint.

You can't be Writing Women Badly without Writing Badly.

Going back to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl example again, in the process of making the feminist case for why it is bad you also make an excellent case that it is simply bad to create such a character in general, as their actions are inhuman and their motivations bizarre. It is only the fact that such characters are almost (or) always female that makes the criticism feminist. (Because making women act in inhuman and bizarre ways implies women are inhuman and bizarre, natch.)

The viewpoint indicates that a certain kind of Writing Badly is being addressed. A similar kind of focused on-a-particular-set-of-issues criticism can be made in a lot of ways. I could start a Militarist Criticism movement where I examine a work every week for its failure to understand military or para-/pseudo-military structure when dealing with such. Or a Policist Criticism movement. You get the idea.

Looking for a specific form of failure is specialization, and it's up to the audience to apply their own critical think skills when coping with any criticism. If they are unwilling, that reflects poorly on them, not on the critic.

Possibly, but I do think that those that know this kind of attitude in modern media is wrong will understand her message and those that do not, will not and would not listen anyway.

[General Battuta]

I'll refer you to the answer I gave Battuta, it's more a question of the affect labels have, there's a writer out there who got so fed up with his covers that he started posing in similar get-up :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21033708

He's not doing it because he is anything, he just found the covers annoying more than degrading, and started to show how silly they looked when the female character was replaced with a male one.

No, this is 100% wrong. He's doing it because he thinks the covers are disempowering and he's a feminist. Him on the topic:

Way back in the beginning of 2012 when I started doing this cover pose thing, the idea was to take the poses many female characters are contorted into for book covers, and to find a way to highlight exactly how ridiculous and impractical they were. And also to have fun. I definitely wanted it to be fun. I followed up with a continuation of the discussion, looking at the fact that yes, men are sexualized and objectified too, but not in the same ways. Men’s poses are almost always less physically awkward, more “action-ready,” and more powerful.

When I started the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation cover pose fundraiser, I saw it as 1) a way to take something fun and do more of it while supporting a great cause, and 2) a way to continue pointing out problematic poses on our book covers.

The trouble is, I didn’t spend much time introducing and contextualizing the Cover Pose Tradition at the start of the fundraiser. And when we did the first Scalzi/Hines pose-off, while I plugged the fundraiser, I didn’t provide any context at all for why we were doing this.

For my regular readers, that shouldn’t be a problem. But the Scalzi/Hines piece got a lot of press from places like Fark and Boing-Boing, meaning a lot of folks came in and saw two SF/F authors dressing up/posing like women for charity. And some of the reaction began to shift from, “I say, those poses seem remarkably impractical, and how exactly does one do that without dislocating one’s ankle?” to “Hey, guys dressing or posing like girls are both ugly and hilarious!”

This is on me. My blog, my fundraiser, my responsibility. It’s not like I’m unaware of John’s internet appeal and the likely results of our pose-off. (Though even so, the response was bigger than I could have imagined, and I appreciate that – thank you.) But I was caught up in the excitement of raising a lot of money for a good cause, and the flat-out fun of competing with a goofy and good-natured friend. So I didn’t think enough about how this might all come across, nor did I take the time to introduce and contextualize what we were doing.

I apologize for that mistake.

Both John and I had fun with this. Speaking for myself, I want you to laugh at the absurdity of these poses. Sure, one of the reasons I use props like butter knives and giant teddy bears is because I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for real props. But another reason is that I want to encourage the laughter.

I can handle good-natured ribbing, too. I know that when I post these pictures, I can expect an email from my brother asking me to reimburse him for another five years of therapy. I know where that’s coming from, and I’ll get him back soon enough.

But if you’re laughing because you’re a straight guy and therefore must declare all male bodies brain-searingly ugly? If you’re laughing because you think a man in a dress is funny and should be mocked? In other words, if you’re laughing because of various aspects of ingrained sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other discriminatory nonsense? Then you’ve missed the point so badly it’s not even funny.

e: He even cancelled an AMA on Reddit because, well, it was on Reddit.

[Flipside]

I don't know if it is, though. I don't think hunter-gatherer societies were the model or ur-prototype for our gender system today, and even if some of them were, which ones? These societies are enormously diverse in the way they handle gender.

Even if we didn't originate from them, we sure pinched stuff from each other. I think that the diversification of societies is part of the reason why there is such a broad span of roles, from Warrior Queen to Damsel in Distress. The trick is finding out why games writers continually pick from the Damsel in Distress side of the scales, and I do think the answer to that is in the number of men in the games industry, not because they are ignorant or sexist, but because they have a lot more idea about how to write a story about a Damsel in Distress than a Warrior Queen. More female writers are definitely needed in the Games Industry.

[Flipside]

I'll refer you to the answer I gave Battuta, it's more a question of the affect labels have, there's a writer out there who got so fed up with his covers that he started posing in similar get-up :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21033708

He's not doing it because he is anything, he just found the covers annoying more than degrading, and started to show how silly they looked when the female character was replaced with a male one.

No, this is 100% wrong. He's doing it because he thinks the covers are disempowering and he's a feminist. Him on the topic:

Way back in the beginning of 2012 when I started doing this cover pose thing, the idea was to take the poses many female characters are contorted into for book covers, and to find a way to highlight exactly how ridiculous and impractical they were. And also to have fun. I definitely wanted it to be fun. I followed up with a continuation of the discussion, looking at the fact that yes, men are sexualized and objectified too, but not in the same ways. Men’s poses are almost always less physically awkward, more “action-ready,” and more powerful.

When I started the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation cover pose fundraiser, I saw it as 1) a way to take something fun and do more of it while supporting a great cause, and 2) a way to continue pointing out problematic poses on our book covers.

The trouble is, I didn’t spend much time introducing and contextualizing the Cover Pose Tradition at the start of the fundraiser. And when we did the first Scalzi/Hines pose-off, while I plugged the fundraiser, I didn’t provide any context at all for why we were doing this.

For my regular readers, that shouldn’t be a problem. But the Scalzi/Hines piece got a lot of press from places like Fark and Boing-Boing, meaning a lot of folks came in and saw two SF/F authors dressing up/posing like women for charity. And some of the reaction began to shift from, “I say, those poses seem remarkably impractical, and how exactly does one do that without dislocating one’s ankle?” to “Hey, guys dressing or posing like girls are both ugly and hilarious!”

This is on me. My blog, my fundraiser, my responsibility. It’s not like I’m unaware of John’s internet appeal and the likely results of our pose-off. (Though even so, the response was bigger than I could have imagined, and I appreciate that – thank you.) But I was caught up in the excitement of raising a lot of money for a good cause, and the flat-out fun of competing with a goofy and good-natured friend. So I didn’t think enough about how this might all come across, nor did I take the time to introduce and contextualize what we were doing.

I apologize for that mistake.

Both John and I had fun with this. Speaking for myself, I want you to laugh at the absurdity of these poses. Sure, one of the reasons I use props like butter knives and giant teddy bears is because I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for real props. But another reason is that I want to encourage the laughter.

I can handle good-natured ribbing, too. I know that when I post these pictures, I can expect an email from my brother asking me to reimburse him for another five years of therapy. I know where that’s coming from, and I’ll get him back soon enough.

But if you’re laughing because you’re a straight guy and therefore must declare all male bodies brain-searingly ugly? If you’re laughing because you think a man in a dress is funny and should be mocked? In other words, if you’re laughing because of various aspects of ingrained sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other discriminatory nonsense? Then you’ve missed the point so badly it’s not even funny.

So he is, interesting, but I still prefer his manner of getting his message across, satire can often work a lot more effectively. And, whether it's pallatable or not, a man doing it is far more likely to have an impact on those who would pay no attention to these videos.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin

Noun
feminism (countable and uncountable; plural feminisms)
[...]
 2. A social theory or political movement arguing that legal and social restrictions on females must be removed in order to bring about equality of both sexes in all aspects of public and private life.

Yes, how dangerous...

[Flipside]

And here we go again with the few words from the sentence interpreted as the whole....

As I said in the statement you took those few words from, the reason in isolation they become dangerous is because men and women do not live in isolation, they interact, and most couples work out a decent enough compromise purely by being in each others vicinity. More women do need to be in positions where they can influence these attitudes in media, of that there is little doubt, but the solution won't come merely from standpoints, it will come from communication as well.

[General Battuta]

There is no such thing as feminism in isolation. Feminism is an attempt to render the gender system egalitarian. 'Feminism in isolation' is a meaningless statement.

[NGTM-1R]

And here we go again with the few words from the sentence interpreted as the whole....

As I said in the statement you took those few words from, the reason in isolation they become dangerous is because men and women do not live in isolation, they interact, and most couples work out a decent enough compromise purely by being in each others vicinity. More women do need to be in positions where they can influence these attitudes in media, of that there is little doubt, but the solution won't come merely from standpoints, it will come from communication as well.

She managed to squeeze eight pages of discussion from this board alone

The thing is, she's right in what she says, but then, in stories, everything is a caricature, not all scientists wear white coats and talk like Brains from Thunderbirds, not all soldiers have an IQ that seems to alternate from 'Hur-Hur he said "penetrate"' to 'I'm relabrating the Nanotech fibres now.. with my teeth!', often in the same soldier.

She's also right that it is the trope that is the problem, the 'maiden in distress' is one of the oldest, most deeply ingrained tropes out there, that'll take a lot to shift.

Thing is, if you take feminism in isolation it is dangerous, much as if you take masculinism in isolation, it suggests that we are not two sides of the same coin, it's easy and accurate to say that women don't want to feel like victims, but all it feels to me is that she's sitting in front of a camera saying 'This is wrong, that is wrong', and making no real attempt to identify the cause beyond the assumption that it is because men are doing it.

I'm not seeing it.

There's stuff about needing to talk about causes, which I addressed. That appears to be thrust of that paragraph. There's also things about stories being caricatures and scientists not wearing labcoats and an acknowledgement of her fundamental correctness.

And a suggestion that "two sides of the same coin" but that does not remotely express complex ideas of communication or more women in position to influence decisions or a working fiction of equality interpersonal relations. (The first of which is a gimmie and the other two of which are at best irrelevant to the discussion and at worst illustrative of why feminism is necessary. Or in other words, interpersonal relationships can easily be poisoned by this problem and even though there is an excess of men in the profession of storycrafting there is no reason why they should not all be capable of writing nuanced and lifelike portrayals of women.)