I apologize if people are tired of this being brought up again and again, but I wanted to offer my own thoughts.
I didn’t watch the video, but I’ve been following the arguments and rebuttals of the Arias incident prevalent in this thread and I have found it interesting. The term “white-knighting” is, intellectually amusing to see being defined. What does that even mean? Defending a girl regardless of the context of the situation that the girl is in because of a pre-established bias or viewpoint? If so, it’s academically ‘dishonest’ to use this as a blanket statement to generalize all guys who might be perceived to be a “white-knighter,” simply because we don’t all think the exact same way, or necessarily have the same viewpoints when it comes to treating females.
Before I continue with that thought, I want to quickly offer my thoughts on the Arias incident, more specifically a certain instance and some of the responses that followed. He started off in a joking manner, then he proceeded to get into some personal stuff, like her bra size for instance. Miranda started off laughing at some of Arias’ comments. Then she stated live on stream that some of the stuff being asked/discussed of her were creepy. She proceeded to block her chest with her arm when Arias and some other person in the background attempted to guess her size.
There are issues that pop up here.
- She said directly on stream that it was “creepy” in direct response to Arias asking for her bra size
- She attempted to physically block her breasts when Arias and some guy in the background attempted to guess her bra size
Now, I have no idea how some of you were raised up, but I wouldn’t even need Miranda to tell me to stop. I see two insanely clear body indications that she was uncomfortable around some specific sexual inquiries. Based off the comments however, what I derived rather, was this. “Body movements that clearly indicate that you are uncomfortable are irrelevant. You must specifically tell the person to stop, otherwise you are to blame for encouraging the antagonist to continue doing what they were doing.” I’m sorry, but, the only thing that kind of logic tells me is that you are ignorant of the context of the reactions of your words on your surroundings. It’s basically like saying you can hit on a girl until she verbally tells you to stop. It doesn’t matter if she’s turning away from you, moving to a different part of the room, or leaving the building altogether. As long as she doesn’t verbally tell you she’s uncomfortable, then it’s apparently OK to continue hitting on her. /FacepalmxInfinity.
Maybe if you were hanging out with like-minded people, broadcasting a personal stream that clearly indicated the type of language that you should expect, this would be OK. On a stream hosted/sponsored by a company like Capcom, you expect the people on the stream to at least act with courtesy towards everyone and know common manners. Maybe Arias is a really good person on every other stream he’s been on, maybe he isn’t. The one thing this particular stream showed clearly is his undesired side, the side we should try to avoid igniting in the first place, rather than saying “he’s normally like that so just ignore it”. Ignoring this kind of stuff is basically telling the person that it’s OK if he does it again, which is isn’t.
Fact is, she gave clear indications that she didn’t want Arias to continue, but he did anyways. As for the person who tried redirecting the blame onto the people going along with Arias. What the hell? Are you serious? Arias’ sexual banter was dominating the room for those instances. He’s the antagonist. The only person to blame is the person who’s inciting the trouble. If the source of the problem is right in front of you, why wouldn’t you try to extinguish that? By unplugging the source directly, it is an obvious warning to other potential violators that such behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Unfortunately, it wasn’t stopped, thus saying to everyone else in the room, and the streamers, that it was OK to continually harass Miranda despite the indications that it should have stopped.
As for “thick-skin”, the context of that word has been twisted so much that it no longer represents what it was originally meant to mean. Now, I’m not saying we should be pampered when we’re being discriminated, but that people are using the phrase completely wrong. Let’s say you have an analysis to turn in to your boss and he gives you harsh criticism. You’re expected not to cry because of that. You’re supposed to have “thick-skin” in that context and take what your boss said and incorporate the advice into future analysis. In terms of a non-professional type of environment, I’m disappointed to see that people are accusing others of not having thick enough skin as an excuse to say that the constant words of discrimination still present even today are OK.
If I were a barbarian and someone told me that I has a worthless ____, I would take a nail gun and shoot them in the head with it for being a ________. I’ve never even met the guy, and he comes up to me out of nowhere and says that. Why should anyone accept such behavior as being OK? Why should I be allowed to harass/discriminate someone? Why should they be expected to have thick skin because I decided I had a non-issue with them? Why should they just ignore it, thus telling the violator that it’s OK for him to continue engaging in this behavior, because people are expected to just “shrug it off”? Why is this happening to begin with? Why is no one stopping such unwanted behavior?
As for the “white-knighter” comment, I’m disturbed because I treat everybody the same way. However, because I’m a guy and am obviously more sexually attracted to females, I naturally try to treat women better. I don’t mean buying her fancy gifts. I mean just treating the girl like a gentlemen, getting to know her, letting her know a little bit about me, and showing her that not everybody hates her when she feels like the world is against her. Now, I don’t consider myself a feminist, nor do I really believe in it. Rather, I prefer a world where everybody treated everybody else the same way. What I mean by that is, if there’s a problem between males and females, rather than automatically assume that it’s the males who are harassing the females, I find out what happened first from both sides perspectives, because if the females are the one that incited the trouble to begin with, the burden of guilt for having a pre-established bias would haunt me in my dreams.
Well, I actually did have some thoughts on the video after all. I only have this to say. The moment you attempt to generalize a community under one blanket statement, the rest of your presentation has no merit to it. Any community is always composed of several other sub-communities. Now, if you want to generalize a specific sub-community, some communities talk more trash then others. But to assume that one person represents the entire community as a whole is just beyond ignorant. I’m definitely not like Arias in the slightest. If anything, I’m more composed and aware of the social contexts that my words might have on others. I definitely don’t treat people the way Arias supposedly treats others. I also don’t talk about some subjects so freely and without thought as he may appear to do so.