Hear Anita Sarkeesian at the Galleries at Moore

On April 20, we in Philly have the privilege of hearing personally from a media critic who faces a litany of asinine, violent, and downright nasty online abuse for having the audacity to say that women exist in our digital spaces, that they’re worth listening to, and that they have merit as individual human beings in the realm of video games.

The gall of this girl.

The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design host Anita Sarkeesian for a free lecture on Friday night. Sarkeesian’s name has popped up on the international radar over the last few years as she and other women dared to face the men of #Gamergate, whose insides turn to a magma pit of sheer terror and rage every time someone suggests that women are human and exist outside of video-game stereotypes.

Moore, the only visual-arts college for women in the country, is a natural fit to welcome Sarkeesian: in 2013, it launched its major in Animation & Game Arts, hoping for a future when women start closing the gap on an industry heavily dominated by men.

The #Gamergate frenzy may have crested last year, when Sarkeesian addressed the audience at VidCon (an annual online-video conference drawing mobs of YouTubers). A large group of her harassers gathered in the front rows to troll her during a panel where she spoke about why the gaming industry needs feminism, and she addressed one of her most virulent critics as “a garbage human” churning out “dumb-ass videos.”

These guys make a good living off their online vitriol. Meanwhile, Sarkeesian launched Feminist Frequency, an educational nonprofit hosting videos on hot-button feminist topics, including her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series. She’s been a United Nations panelist and a celebrated guest speaker across the country, doing interviews ranging from The Wall Street Journal to The Colbert Report.

Her October 2017 video One Weird Trick for Helping Women tracks the rise of #Gamergate alongside the normalization of 21st-century white supremacy, and she notes that anyone surprised by the current climate of open bigotry and rampant sexual harassment and abuse hasn’t been listening.

“We’re not your fucking canaries. We’re people,” she says to those who ignored a critical mass of women like her speaking up about hateful cultural movements on the rise. If you want to stop predators and rapists before they spend decades assaulting people, or “you want to curtail dangerous and deadly political movements before they take root in the White House, there’s a pretty simple first step. Start listening to women!”

Now you can hear what Sarkeesian has to say to Philly.

Anita Sarkeesian comes to the Galleries at Moore (1916 Race Street) for a lecture on Friday, April 20, from 6:30 to 8pm. It’s free, open to the public, and ADA accessible. You can reserve your seat in advance here.