By Nicole
In Grand Theft Auto V, an R-rated video game that allows players to attack and kill women in the sex trade, I would have been the character who gets left by the sidewalk, bleeding and unconscious. Or hit with bats, run down, set alight still screaming and graphically murdered – for game points, or maybe just ‘for fun.’
I was in the sex industry in my early 20s. But instead of the virtual world of GTA V – the abuse I suffered, while not as extreme as those in the game, was terrifyingly real.
It has taken me almost ten years to get my life back on track and to recover from the sexual violence and abuse I faced. I still live with flashbacks, nightmares, and crippling depression and anxiety.
Last week, together with two other women, I started a change.org petition requesting Target to pull GTA V from its shelves. The reason behind the campaign is simple: that a game exists which makes ‘enjoyment’ out of the kind of abuse I lived through in real life is sickening. For survivors of abuse, it adds insult to injury to think someone could get a thrill out of violence against women, even if it was in a ‘virtual world’.
In GTA V, a new ‘first-person player mode’ feels more realistic than ever. This includes a more realistic depiction of sex acts with women (who are largely represented as prostitutes) – and the options that follow of being able to kill them with machetes, guns or bats to get their virtual money back.
Making it all the more disturbing was having a retailer I shop at which sells and promotes this kind of game. As recently as last week, Target was advertising Grand Theft Auto next to Peppa Pig. This was being marketed at parents buying Christmas toys.
It sent a terrifying message. This is a game that has ingrained misogyny and graphic violence against women. It breeds an acceptance of abuse in our world; abuse from which I’ve been trying desperately to recover – and by stocking this game, major retailers are lending their credibility to it.
Despite potential backlash, I couldn’t stay silent about this. The fact that over 40,000 parents, customers, and advocates got behind our change.org petition showed we weren’t the only ones. The response to our campaign exceeded our wildest expectations – and forced Target to listen to their customers.
Since then, gamers have launched vicious and violent attack on myself and other women who dared to speak up. We’ve had threats of rape and torture. To mutilate us and set us on fire.
One gamer has threatened to locate us and publicise where we live. Another has superimposed the face of a friend onto the body of a murdered woman lying in blood, in a scene from the game.
“I’m going on GTA V right now and pretending every ugly c—t is you”, tweeted another hater to her.
Ironically, these abusers claim this game does not perpetuate violence, and yet they continue to send women horrific violent threats online.
Gamers also argue that games like GTA V have no impact on real life violence, despite research published earlier this year showing violent video games increases aggression, aggression-related variables and decreases pro-social outcomes.
Sadly, many women don’t need studies to tell us that. We know because we’ve lived it. We know how violence can start with ‘playful’ remarks and turn into dangerous, controlling behaviour. We’ve seen the violence implicitly condoned in these games play out in real life.
The ‘thrill and pleasure’ that gamers get off violence against women in GTA V makes the world less safe. Not because every gamer turns into the abuser – but because it breeds a casual acceptance of violence against women.
Stripping GTA V from the shelves of retailers like Target and Kmart won’t change that culture overnight. It’s one step among many — like the recent #takedownjulienblanc campaign – that will help dismantle the culture of violence against women in years to come.
It may not be a popular debate, but it’s one that Australia desperately needs.
*Name has been changed
Reprinted with permission of the author.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732): 24 hour, National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault. Lifeline: 131 114
By Brendan Keogh
…there is no denying the deeply rooted misogyny and sexism of the series.
Of Grand Theft Auto V’s three playable characters, all are men. The vast majority of the women depicted by the game’s narrative are either passive victims to be killed or rescued, or sex workers to be killed or used. While the series’ supporters have long used the excuse of “satire” to justify the story lines, there is no critique of the social attitudes depicted; it simply perpetuates them…
The petition signers are completely right: Grand Theft Auto V’s treatment of women is terrible. That they would want to complain about this, and that Target and now K-Mart might listen to them is neither shocking nor outrageous.
… it is not a case of censorship, and it is not a case of an ignorant mainstream being paranoid about a medium they do not understand. Rather, it is a group of people with legitimate concerns about an incredibly popular cultural work perpetuating toxic politics, and taking the reasonable approach of directing their valid concerns to retailers who often explicitly market such adult products directly to children. If videogames want cultural relevancy, they need to deal with cultural responsibility… Videogames no longer exist on the margins of popular culture, and if they are going to uncritically present problematic material, they need to be ready to face the consequences. Read full article
The thing is, it’s not just a vocal minority. It’s a vocal minority that actually participates in the cruelest harassment, but we’re kidding ourselves to think they are somehow separate from a culture characterized by video games. Just play a match of more or less any competitive online game and listen to the number of times you hear the word “rape:” despite what we may think, this is not normal or inevitable. What it is, however, is a natural byproduct of the games we play.
We all know, at least on some level, that games have a massive problem with depictions of women…
It’s not a tremendous leap to assume that a community of consumers and producers is going to develop some intensely dysfunctional aggression and misogyny when this is the cultural background that we’re interacting with… It all comes from somewhere. If the “gamer” community is defined by playing certain games, then it will inevitably be colored by the content of those games. This recent virulent hatred directed towards women in the industry should serve as some proof. Read full article
See also: ‘Gamers retaliate: activists barraged with rape, mutilation and death threats after Grand Theft Auto win’, MTR
15 Responses
Melinda I really don’t know how you and others at Collective Shout (and beyond) keep at it. I have entered into a few discussions (some civil, yet still very disheartening because many people just don’t ‘get it’) and I am so heart sick and tired. Just this afternoon someone commented (amongst other ‘defenses’) ‘it’s not victims of sexual assault, it’s former sex workers who started the petition’ – he of course did not see the irony of his re-definition. But anything I’ve read or that’s been directed at me over the past few days is absolutely nothing compared to what I know you all have to deal with on a daily basis. I just get so disheartened, not so much by the aggressive comments (I can dismiss those), but the more moderate ‘why do you bother’ ones. Thank you (and Nicole and others) for the amazing work you do on so many issues
Grand Theft Auto doesn’t promote a atmosphere of violence against women. The problem with much of the recent criticism of the game is that it doesn’t take into account that the game is a sandbox (freedom to do as the player pleases) game and doesn’t promote or force you to perform acts of violence against women.
The problem lies not with the game but the player. Arguments against the game normaly show pictures or game footage of a player attacking a woman, yet that is the actions of the individual player. Although these actions may be quite horrific it does not mean that the game should be removed from stores as the game itself is not forcing the player to act violently towards women. The actions of one player does not reflect the whole videeo game.
Radical Feminists have been providing factual evidence for decades that men collectively and individually continue to hold women and girls in contempt and believe women and girls are dehumanised sexualised disposable commodities. But still Josephine and Joe Public continues to ‘play the three wise monkeys’ claiming ‘there is no male war on women and girls’ because it is just a few ‘bad (male) apples not a rotten Male Supremacist System which upholds; condones and profits by promoting male hatred/male contempt for women and girls.
This is why men en masse are hysterically threatening women and girls with real male sexual violence because how dare women demand the male created women-hating game GTA V be removed from sale, since this game is merely ‘mens’ sexualised fantasies’ and no human is harmed!! Note ‘no human refers to males because men continue to declare only males are the default human beings.
Men as usual continue to utter their illogical lies by claiming ‘oh it is just a bunch of male hating women who want to deny us men our right to enjoy accessing a game which reinforces our male power and male domination over all women. ‘
Male violence against women and girls isn’t a problem according to the men because only when violence is committed against males does it become real. Said violence is always committed by martians never males!! Again deliberate obsfucation of the fact males are the ones overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence not women and girls.
The good news is – if one can describe this as good news is the hysterical anger emanating from the men who are allowing their emotions to cloud their supposedly masculine rational logic, which proves this petition is ‘hitting a male nerve’ and proving that we Radical Feminists are right because we have always said there is a real centuries old male war on women and it has never ended.
Keep on holding men to account because this is what they do not want to made public and women band together and support each other. Together we can successfully hold men to account and we must demand male supremacist legal system prosecute those vile women-hating males who are publicly threatening women and girls with male sexual violence.
Men would never allow other males to publicly threaten them with male violence so why should we women not demand the same fundamental rights as men, especially since it concerns our right to safety and freedom from male oppression.
Um… I’m sick of hearing losers saying, “Not all people choose to rape the women. You’re given a CHOICE whether you want to or not”. WTF? Why is this option available to begin with?
Love that Collective Shout have managed to enrage so many pubeless losers. They can suck a fart LOLOLOLOLOL
“The actions of one player does not reflect the whole videeo game.”
Daniel, like the creators and players of this game, your mind is broken.
Exactly right Hecuba.
“Men would never allow other males to publicly threaten them with male violence so why should we women not demand the same fundamental rights as men”
They should try and imagine a world in which there was porn everywhere with men being humiliated for fun, if there were men standing on the corners of the street selling themselves for money, and if all media portrayed important women in suits arguing that men should undergo mandatory medical procedures on their genitals, and the rest of the paper was filled with half naked men as eye candy for these women….How would they like that?
Something less devastating, but some time ago I saw men complain about there not being enough bathrooms for men in some building, and they were taken seriously automatically….when women have been called silly whiners for years, if they brought up the subject of there not being enough bathrooms for women.
Hookers aren’t people. She had no right to attack the gaming community with something she didn’t like.
If she don’t like a game or something, she should have turn the other way and don’t play it.
I can’t help but to think she clearly dropped out of school to become a sexual object.
She can not blame the game for something she used to work in and for the people that fucked her.
Just because other people are fucked in the head, does >>NOT << mean we all are.
Her attack on GTA V was merely a cry for attention.
For the record, my Mother plays GTA. She quite enjoys doing Taxi missions and gloating to me about how much better she is than me at that part of the game. She has only ever accidentally killed people in the game, and it is usually due to a pedestrian or motorist doing something stupid. In most cases, this has resulted to her in game arrest and or death by the police. So she is punished for these acts of violence, whether it be against a male or female.
So I have to wonder, are the people behind this petition or even it’s supporters claiming that my Mother is misogynist? Just because she plays a game where it is possible to act in a misogynistic way? Because if they are, they need to take a look around the.
We live in a world where it is a human being choice on how they treat others (unfortunately that includes misogyny). However that does not make us misogynists. How we choose to treat others is what makes the difference, in the game you get that same choice. If you want to bash or kill women (men too), that is fine, but expect to be arrested or killed for your actions. Something which is funnily enough not always so in real life. It could be argued that the policing in the game is better than real life.
I do not see how my mind is broken morag, the fact that the actions of one player doesn’t reflect the game is true. As Garry said not all experiences in GTA are violent, just the other day I spent a hour doing tricks on a motorbike accross a valley. Nor does the game engourage violence against media. Nor does GTA serve as a way for men to ‘reinforce their male power’. Nor does the game at any stage encorage violence against women. Assuming because one player has done such things that it means that all players and the whole game is corrupt and ‘evil’ is a poor assumption based on biased evedence that most people have used during the pertition.
Daniel – I believe you when you say you don’t play the game violently. I know men who play the game and don’t act like knobheads. But why is there an option available to pay for prostituted women and then kill them? What the fuck? Surely you see something weird about that, don’t you?
I’ve spoken to heaps of guys over the last few days about this (all guys who play/have played the game) and they all agree that this is fucked up. And they don’t give a shit about it being taken off the shelves. Their rationalisation? It’s a game – and they have lives outside of the game.
While the collective gooch waft of pubeless gamers is funny, the safety and respect of women is more important.
You ask for respect of women from the gaming industry yet you call gamers “gooch waft” and “pubeless”. Do you not feel that that is a somewhat hypocritical position? Asking for respect while belittling the people you ask for it from.
LOL!
So, let me get this straight: You think that calling a pimply faced arsehoe “gooch waft” is synonymous with threatening to rape and kill prostituted women/women in general?
I was right to tell you to suck a fart. Suck a big one, buddy! hahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No it isn’t the same yet it doesn’t justify you calling gamers insulting terms. Respect is Respect, Equality is Equality. All because one action is worse than the other doesn’t mean you are then allowed to insult them.
Don’t be pious about what women are “allowed” to say. We’re talking, here, about men and boys who are entertained and excited by gratuitous blood-letting, murder and sexual violence. They are sick, they enjoy their sickness, and even defend it. We owe them no respect.
@Daniel – TOTES TRUE!!! Being mean is, like, so wrong and shit.
I suppose you’re going to reprimand Markov for his input, too (i.e., “hookers aren’t people”). You know, since you’re against mean shit and all.