Nicole Survivor – Australia
It’s a game that encourages players to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get ‘health’ points – and now Target are stocking it and promoting it for your Xmas stocking.
This is Grand Theft Auto 5. This game means that after various sex acts, players are given options to kill women by punching her unconscious, killing with a machete, bat or guns to get their money returned.
Please Target – we appeal to you as women survivors of violence, including women who experienced violence in the sex industry, to immediately withdraw Grand Theft Auto V from sale.
One of many fan clips on YouTube shows the woman being run down, run over, set alight and, still screaming, repeatedly shot. This misogynistic GTA 5 literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence.
We have firsthand experience of this kind of sexual violence. It haunts us, and we’ve been trying to rebuild our lives ever since. Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure – to see this violence that we lived through turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm.
This game spreads the idea that certain women exist as scapegoats for male violence. It shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry and puts them at greater risk. Women in the industry are 40 times more likely to be murdered by a man than any other group of women.
Games like this are grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women. It is fuelling the epidemic of violence experienced by so many girls and women in Australia – and globally.
Target, you pride yourself on being a family company, caring for local communities, and have a strong ethical sourcing policy. How can you do this while contributing to hostile and callous attitudes toward victims of violence and, more broadly, to all women?
We urge you to follow the example set by the New Zealand’s largest retailer, NZ Warehouse Group, in upholding Corporate Social Responsibility and ethical corporate leadership, by removing these games.
This would also set an example to other stockists of GTA V.
Please put ethics before profits and make a strong statement that you do not condone sexual violence, sexual exploitation or the abuse of women as ‘entertainment’.
Nicole, Claire and Kat
You can also leave a comment on Target’s Facebook. Let them know you don’t think GTAV helps ‘spread Christmas cheer’.
See also:
‘How evil should a video game allow you to be’, The New YorkerLast month, a user on a Grand Theft Auto V forum asked whether players would be able to rape women in the game. In the post, which was widely shared on social media, he wrote, “I want to have the opportunity to kidnap a woman, hostage her, put her in my basement and rape her everyday, listen to her crying, watching her tears.”
28 Responses
Please refuse to stock GTA and stand up to stop violence against women!
Please ban this game.
We will not tolerate blatant violence against women, it is the same as terrorism against women, we demand that you remove this demeaning game and stop advertising that women are just objects to be attacked, abused and murdered.
Please make a stand against blatant violence against women and not sell this game.
This is really disgusting.
Honestly I think this may be worth contacting headline media over.
Spread this petition around as much as possible, I belive Target which is a compeny that often will side with progress would support this.
If it gets enough support that is, I will be sending it around later today, I suggest we all do the same, Popular twitter accounts, frontline feminsts, as much as can be done. This is a great oprunity to make the world a better place.
What!!!??? R u all crazy or something. Computer games is the perfect place for all this cool stuff. That’s where it meant to be. I a gonna play this game no matter what 🙂 and what about violence against men in this game… Who cares 🙂
Please remove this game urgently from your stores. I am a regular shopper with you, always on the assumption you are a family store with families interests at heart.
I cannot – and will not – shop with you again until you remove this potentially harmful and damaging game from sale within your stores.
This game sounds disgraceful. Suppliers – please do not stock this game & customers please do not buy this game. I know of very young children playing GTA – what values and behaviours are they learning? Please take it off our shelves.
“I cannot – and will not – shop with you again until you remove this potentially harmful and damaging game from sale within your stores.”
Shops should only sell things I approve of. Period.
This petition claims video games like this contribute to violence against women and girls. When making such claims evidence is required. As evidence cannot be found we can presume this claim to be bunkam.
Don’t be shitty. You kill just as many men as women. God damn feminists, man.
Boycott the store until the point is clear. We don’t want to live in a society where this is ok.
You are insane, violence is a everyday thing. If you think they will withdraw gta V YOU ARE CRAZY.
this is what I wrote.. feel free to use the imagery yourself if it works for you..
.I am signing because I refuse to believe that games such as this are an inevitable part of mainstream culture, so I will do my bit to keep it out of my backyard. If people want to play these games, they should have to go to more trouble to source them than hopping into Target and picking it of the shelves. Target is my backyard. Just as I will control the bindis in my backyard, I want to make my opinion known about what is acceptable in my space. If people want to have bindi farms (figuratively speaking), that is their prerogative, though I would never be able to understand their interest or desire for such a thing. As long as they don’t think they can have a bindi farm where it could hurt my children or grandchildren. In this case, games such as Grand theft auto hurt the whole environment by training males to see women and girls as objects of violence. Influences like this are hard to contain, and results of them could spill out anywhere anytime. I would like to see the game banned.. but firstly, removed from my backyard. They need to be seen as non mainstream, and as decidedly anti-social, and the users of the game need to feel this ostracism from their society. This has been the time honoured way of influencing behaviour. Society.. you and me… need to get a grip and realise we have the power to have influence, and then get out there and do something. Stop being so easy going and accepting. There is a right and a wrong, and the sooner we as a society start acting like it the better. Take the trouble to deal with the bindis in your own backyard.
The problem with game is that it hides under the banner of “art” to justify the treatment of everyone. When what happens in reality is that 14 year old boys will see it and worship it. Its the same problem I have with many Scorsese movies, he claims he can do whatever he wants and glamorize abhorrent behavior, because he is an artist. But what usually happens in the people experiencing it don’t see it as an indictment but encouragement.
Same with GTA, retailers like Target need to take a stand against this kind of thing.
I want to help get this petition get as much visibility as possible, where should I send it?
@EDDY
Even if they don’t its worth taking a stand to help change cultural norms. This is about more than just one Retailer.
@dan
It’s not about things that “I” approve of, its about changing a stagnant culture of violence against women.
@Lose
“Computer games is where I get to do all the cool stuff!”
So butchering women after having sex with them is “cool stuff?” Try again.
I’m going to try to send this to some people who could get the word out. I had a freind back in highschool who played this game religiously and ended up being quite violent to many of his girlfreinds, it was not fun to see, I really hope Target as well as many other major realitors take a stand against this.
Time to actively police and promote women’s safety. If they were myrdering cute animals there would be uproar and a public outcry- why is the treatment of women in this way becoming so normalised? Target if you sell this product you are no longer family or women friendly.
Just putting this one out there – I just read the following comment:
“I know of very young children playing GTA – what values and behaviours are they learning?”
Maybe that is neither the fault of the game’s developer nor of Target, but of those childrens’ parents? It’s rated R, and any parent who thinks it’s okay to let children play it should be under heavier scrutiny than Target.
I enjoy playing video games. Always have. As a kid, I played Pokemon and Star Wars (G, PG) games, and in my late teens, I played Halo and Call of Duty (MA). As a 22 year old, I have played GTA and WatchDogs (both R rated). Notice that the games have always been age-appropriate.
I am of the firm belief that if a child is given a balanced and well-rounded view of the world, and that particular types of content are introduced at ages where the acts and repercussions thereof can be understood properly, there is no problem with games like this existing.
I may play a game like GTA occasionally and commit violent offenses, but I don’t do it any more in real life than I drive at 300km/h after enjoy a Lamborghini in Forza (PG) or go outside and capture and enslave adorable creatures after I play Pokemon (G).
Scarlett, in real life you are unlikely to ever get your hands on a Lamborghini to be able drive at 300km/hr, and you’re definitely not going to come across any Pokemons. Unfortunately, you and the other GTA players have all the opportunity in the world to buy a woman for prostitution in real life. Men are murdering and injuring women in the sex industry at rates far higher than those even for non-prostituted women. There is an existing culture and practice of horrendous violence and discrimination against this group. This situation hasn’t arisen accidentally, it’s fuelled by cultural products like GTA that incite hatred and violence against women. I hope you can go back to your Lamborghini and Pokemon days and remember gaming as a form of fun and triviality, not hatred.
“Players are given options to kill women by punching her unconscious, killing with a machete, bat or guns to get their money returned.”
This is either poor writing or a misunderstanding of what the game is. GTA is a sandbox game, which means you can do what you want in it. Murdering prostitutes isn’t encouraged (in fact, police respond) and players aren’t “given options”. They would have to very intentionally kill the prostitute, just as they might choose to walk away and play a round of golf. You have weapons in the game and amongst the millions of people who populate the game’s world, like in real life, there are sex workers.
Putting aside the fact that this is a pretty pathetic attempt at crowdsourcing censorship, this effort will fail as GTA is a massively popular game and doesn’t breach guidelines.
Have a go at the useless, uninformed parents who buy their kids these games, not responsible consumers.
Video games, music, movies and t-shirts have as much power over you AS YOU CHOOSE TO GIVE THEM, period. By making the CHOICE to be offended by such things you are in fact giving such things power over you. There are also about 500 bigger issues in the world right now than Target carrying GTA 5.
Also last time I checked this game was rated M for Mature meaning no kid should be playing it in the first place. So instead of being angry at Target, you should be angry at the irresponsible parents, who buy games for their kids without checking the warning first.
This is just plain ignorance by any woman or man who sign or share this petition. Have any of you actually played the game or have you just watched some stupid kid’s video and made a judgement based on that?
Yes, the game is violent but it is violent to all women and men. Band the game because of it’s violence to all people but don’t go making assumptions that are so blatantly wrong to those of us who actually play computer games. Then while you are banding GTA 5 for violence you might want to band any other blood thirsty movies, tv shows or documentaries…. oh wait that’s starting to sound a little extreme.
“Video games, music, movies and t-shirts have as much power over you AS YOU CHOOSE TO GIVE THEM, period. By making the CHOICE to be offended by such things you are in fact giving such things power over you. There are also about 500 bigger issues in the world right now than Target carrying GTA 5.”
Michael, did you read the original post written by women who have survived violence and the sex industry? They are not CHOOSING to be offended, they are reliving the violence by no choice of their own as this type of media is pushed further and further into everyones faces. There are ‘500 bigger issues’? Yes and many of them involve the exploitation and violence, which this game epitomises. Taking this game out of family friendly stores sends a message that violence and exploitation is not acceptable – and therefore it is totally relevant to the ‘500 bigger issues’ you mention. Try to connect the dots a little more.
I find this pathetic that you have to target a video game developed for adults that is R rated and is a sandbox game.. It is based off reality you know, maybe if “humans” weren’t so realistically screwed up in head to attack games like this that are just purely built for gaming stimulation for players that would like to experience a realistic life with no boundaries in sand box gaming.
You people are border line retarded to say this is sexist and making people turn into psychopaths.. I know so many people that play this game, yet they dont drop $ on prostitutes and go out shooting and taking advantage of girls over a game.. come on they have a little more sense then that, they have shows like NCIS and real life news to make them go over the edge and plan mass murders and to take advantage of women.
What im trying to get at is this is absolutely pathetic.. don’t attack a game just because its being sold like hotcakes, if you can’t accept a game that is based off realistic adult interactions and realistic modern human psychology and humor then your more like a dumb pre-programmed robot with no learning and accepting capability of real life..
Your all annoying stuck up women with intentions to “better the world” for yourselves and have no consideration of other peoples lives.