Anita Sarkeesian and the need for more female critics

Check out this awesome article from Maddy Myers at Hyper Mode. It talks primarily about Games journalism but I think most of her points are valid for any women critiquing in any field:

If you’re a critic or a journalist, your job is hard enough. You have to love it to do it at all. Don’t believe me? Try it sometime; see how the unforgiving hours and low pay treat you.

If you’re also a woman, you’ll endure more scrutiny and more harassment online just for that reason. If you’re a woman and you write about gender roles in relation to videogames, the harassment will get worse. If you’re also visually present online (in photographs or video), the harassment worsens yet further. Anita Sarkeesian can put a check mark next to every single one of these boxes, and no one should envy her for it. No amount of money could make up for the difficulty of her day-to-day life.

It is enough to put any woman off of going into the field which is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Even if you don't  agree with the points that Sarkeesian makes in her videos (and you don't have to, as Myres points out Sarkeesian is not supposed to be "the perfect critic") she doesn't deserve the vitriol pointed her way just because of her gender.

What is it about brutally murdered young women?

(Spoilers for Dexter and The Dark Knight below)

Sady Doyle tries to answer that question with this article titled "The Violently Killed Femmes".

It comes down to the vulnerability that we perceive in a young (almost always white) woman with an air or innocence and virginity. In many shows it transpires that this may not be the whole truth. Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer is a typical example of this, the prom queen who snorts coke and hangs out with demons. Nonetheless she is a complex and ultimately sympathetic character, especially compared to other examples where the dead body is there to be both mourned and fetishised in equal measure.