Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the Feminist Frequency web series, has started a kickstarter project to fund a new series called “Tropes vs Women in Video Games”, looking at common portrayals such as damsel in distress, sexy villainess, etc.

Sadly, it will doubtlessly not surprise anyone that some sectors of the gaming community have reacted extremely negatively towards the project. In her own words:

The intimidation and harassment effort has included a torrent of misogyny and hate speech on my YouTube video, repeated vandalizing of the Wikipedia page about me, organized efforts to flag my YouTube videos as “terrorism”, as well as many threatening messages sent through Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter, email and my own website. These messages and comments have included everything from the typical sandwich and kitchen “jokes” to threats of violence, death, sexual assault and rape. All that plus an organized attempt to report this project to Kickstarter and get it banned or defunded. Thankfully, Kickstarter has been incredibly supportive in helping me deal with the harassment on their service.

There are three days left to support the project, if anyone is interested (though it is definitely being made), or to just to support it by following it on twitter or sending messages. I thought that a some of you may be interested in this, as we have all seen this type of misogyny online directed towards female gamers, or people who raise the issues of gaming and gender, and that some people would be interested in the project itself.