How We Do Feminist Work: A Reflection on the Saarkesian/Cowkitty Fiasco
[edit: I would like to note that Cowkitty has clearly stated this is not a feminist issue. For her, it seems like it is primarily (solely?) an issue of copyright infringement. However, from my perspective, this is another instance in a long line of questionable violations from Sarkeesian dealing with her stealing other people’s work. Since she has proclaimed herself as doing feminist work, that makes it a feminist issue for me. Cowkitty has also called for people not to be too mean to Sarkeesian about this, to keep the discourse civil. So, forgive my anger toward the end of the post. Also another point, check out the conversation on Twitter between Cowkitty and noted likeable person Johnathan Blow.]
You should all be familiar with Anita Sarkeesian by this point, but if you aren’t here is a quick recap. Sarkeesian creates feminist critique videos of elements of gaming culture. She successfully created a Kickstarter, where she received a ton of money to continue making the videos, and also got the typical death threat backlash that comes along with being a woman speaking out against sexism in tech industries. This made her more popular, and ultimately got her more money for her company? Videos? Nonprofit? Well wherever the money went, she got some.
Last week, a gaming artist known as Cowkitty started a Reddit thread about Sarkeesian (well, not really about Sarkeesian, but you’ll see) that blew up. As it turns out, Sarkeesian stole an image that she uses for the Feminist Frequency logo and branding from copyrighted images on Cowkitty’s web page. Cowkitty wrote this article detailing everything that has happened to this point on the issue, including posting the numerous letters she and her fans had written to Sarkeesian asking for her to explain her use of Cowkitty’s picture of Princess Daphne in the logo. No one from Sarkeesian’s organization responded to the inquiries. This eventually led Cowkitty to write the blog post and the Reddit thread.
Once the story started getting out, someone from Feminist Frequency did quickly contact Cowkitty, and for a brief moment, it looked like things were going to get resolved. As Cowkitty said in her initial letter, it is absolutely possible that Sarkeesian didn’t understand copyright laws and thought this was an appropriate use of the image. However, since somebody clearly and purposefully Photoshoped out the copyright mark which was on the original image, they obviously knew the author intended the work to be copyrighted (how shitty is it to intentionally Photoshop out a copyright mark?). Even so, Cowkitty’s responses were thoughtful and non-accusatory.
This is where shit gets crazy. Sarkeesian herself wrote Cowkitty a response on 3/7. Here is Cowkitty’s retelling of the response: “She apologized for missing my e-mail in the pile of messages she gets daily, and explained that it wasn’t intentional theft of my specific image. She stated that it’s use in a “remixed collage is transformative in nature and as such constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for under section 107 of the US Copyright law”, and noted again that Feminist Frequency projects are non-profit.”
Cowkitty responded: “Even if this was a legal example of Fair Use (It’s not), it wouldn’t mean that the theft was ethical or moral. It’s exploitative and unfortunately marginalizes content creators”, and kindly asked again for valid proof of non-profit status so we could move on to establishing the rest of the criteria and officially consider this Fair Use.” Sarkeesian’s producer dickheadedly posted a passive aggressive post on Twitter responding to the query: “One of the biggest misunderstandings about fair use is the mistaken belief that remix must be strictly noncommercial. This is false.” To which Cowkitty tweeted back “So you’re a not non-profit?” A legitimate point, since many, many people gave money under particular pretenses to Sarkeesian’s cause.
This entire issue disgusts me on several levels. First, as a scholar, your work, even if it is popular and not academic, should be thoughtful and respectful of others’ work. You should never steal work, and you should always at least attempt to make sure proper citations are given. I don’t believe this because of some outdated notion of the pureness of ideas, but because we trade in ideas and art and writing and without mutual appreciation for citation, our world starts to fall apart. Second, as a person who cares a lot about digital media, I worry when people use things like remix and fair use to avoid paying for stuff they really ought to pay for. Fair use was not made to allow you to steal people’s stuff, but to ensure freedom of expression. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t qualify as the latter. Finally, as a feminist, it sickens me that Sarkeesian would treat another woman in the community this way.
My response to Sarkeesian is this: it is hard enough to be a woman in this community. We need each others’ support. Despite the fact that I have always thought your work is complete crap, I’ve never bad mouthed you on this blog or anywhere else (until now, of course). You know why? Because I recognize that it is difficult to do what you do, and sometimes trailblazers need the benefit of the doubt. In order for any progress to be made, we can’t let small disagreements stop us—we get enough backlash from other places. When you’re taking an indiscriminate machete to an environment in order to remake it into a better one, mistakes will be made. But you aren’t part of this community. You’re a fraud, and you make it harder for the rest of us trying to do legitimate work.
