Tag: March 2015

ASG election dates extended by a week due to low turnout

In an effort to get more students involved with Associated Students Government, Student Affairs extended the election dates for the upcoming election in April.

Potential ASG candidates originally had until March 16 to get their election packets turned into the Student Affairs office in M-200 with voting to begin April 15-16. However, due to low candidacy turnout, the dates were extended until March 23 for candidates to turn in their packet with voting to take place April 22-23.

“What happened is that we didn’t get much of a response from people wanting to run for election,” Lori Oldham, student affairs coordinator, said. “We had so many places still to fill in the ASG that we extended a week in an effort to get more people to apply for the particular position.”

“If they meet the requirements and have a desire and if they really want to one, be a leader that support and that is there to help support and figure out ways of helping support students. That’s one thing, so we’ll see by extending it (election dates) if we can get those other positions filled with candidates,” William Ponder, student affairs manager, said.

The low turnout was unexpected since the voter turnout for the ASG election last year rose from one percent of City College’s population to three percent.

“I believe our voter turnout on campus increased by two percent,” said current ASG President Adam Garcia in a 2014 City Times article. “Our percentage before was one percent so our percentage increased by two, so it went up to three percent.”

Oldham and the current ASG administration have boosted their efforts by reaching out to students through digital signs, emails to faculty and staff, ASG’s website, City College’s website and classroom announcements.

Another new thing that Oldham is utilizing to help get students to get out and vote is candidate profiles on the ASG website.

“When Monday comes and candidates are there, I’m gonna ask for a headshot and a brief purpose statement … and post that on our website so that students can go online, in the ASG section, and see who’s running for president and what their position statement is, and vice president and down the line,” Oldham explained.

To increase voter turnout for the upcoming election, ASG is adopting new methods of voting including utilizing the computers in the new student services building and having polling stations peppered throughout campus.

“We’re moving the voting into areas where students … all they have to do is come out of their class and sit down and do the vote,” Ponder explained.

According to Oldham, ASG has been working with the IT department to dedicate ports for voting. The ports will be on the computers in the ASG office and designated secure laptops to combat voter fraud.

“We’ll have one (laptop) in front of the Student Affairs office, we’ll have one computer at the AH quad and then two down at the MS building,” Oldham said. “We wont sit there with a paper ballot saying ‘hey, have you voted?’ and then come have them fill out a paper ballot. We’re taking the vote to the people.”

For more information on ASG, including a full list of election dates, visit sdcity.edu/asg.

Originally published in City Times, March 2015.

Everybody plays: A look at video games’ most outspoken critic, why her arguments for change of gender tropes are misguided

To advocate for an issue that you’re passionate about is admirable, however, to demonize an entire group of people in the name of the issue your advocating for is completely and utterly wrong.

Take that mindset and apply it to one of the most controversial pop culture issues surrounding one of the most popular forms of entertainment and you’ll end up being knocked out so fast you swear you’re in “Street Fighter.”

The Gamergate controversy started in August 2014 when the scorned ex-boyfriend of indie game developer Zoe Quinn made a long blog post detailing their break up and accused her of a number of things including a relationship with Kotaku journalist Nathan Grayson.

Gamergate has sparked somewhat of an uproar in the gaming community and has made various figures such as Quinn and developer Brianna Wu bring up issues such as sexism, gamer identity and misogyny.

However, both Quinn and Wu have been relatively quiet compared to gaming’s most infamous outspoken critic – current gaming public enemy number one: Anita Sarkeesian.

Through her website and YouTube account Sarkeesian’s commentary on video games, called “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” discusses famous gaming tropes such as the damsel in distress, the sexual object and the background character.

Sarkeesian’s bare bones argument about how there should be more women characters in video games – on top of the already long laundry list there are – is completely valid and is something that most, if not all, gamers are in completely favor of.

Where Sarkeesian’s argument falls flat is when she attacks and accuses gamers and developers of being sexist and misogynistic just for playing or developing a game that has even an ounce of sexualizing women or having violence against them.

“It gets worse and worse,” Sarkeesian said in an interview with ABC News. “It reinforces this idea that women are sexual objects… it reinforces the idea of women as… playthings for amusement.”

It almost goes without saying that Sarkessian’s strong comments, critiques and analysis against gaming has gotten her a lot of negative reactions and backlash. Sarkeesian, like everyone else in this world, has every right to voice her opinion, no matter how wrong or flawed her analysis about games and gamers might be.

However, gamers and developers also have the right to respond to her allegations of sexism and misogyny. The problem is that a very very small percent of gamers and “trolls” take things way too far, bombarding Sarkeesian, Quinn and Wu with a multitude of death and rape threats.

One of the most famous cases happened in October 2014 when Sarkeesian was to speak at the Utah State University. The university received terrorist threats from a person perpetuating a student. The letter-writer said they would commit “the deadliest school shooting in American history,” and cited the 1989 Montreal Massacre as inspiration.

That threat was just one of many threats that Sarkeesian and company get on an almost daily basis. Death and rape threats like these are proving her point that gamers are sexists and misogynists that only want gaming to be some sort of a “boys club,” which, on the grander scale of gaming is false.

If the small percentage of gamers and trolls really want to make a statement about Sarkeesian’s skewed critiques and analysis then they would stay silent.

Silence speaks volumes. If they would just keep their mouths shut and log off of whatever social media site they frequent then Sarkeesian and her war against tropes would just go away and fade out. However, that doesn’t mean that Sarkeesian can completely escape criticism.

For Sarkeesian to call an entire group of people, both male and female, sexist for killing random woman character A on the street in “Watch Dogs ”or for picking up a prostitute in an off-brand knock off of a Ferrari the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise is completely absurd.

Objectives such as these examples are almost always optional when playing a game. No one is going to hold a computer generated coded gun to your characters head and make them do any of those things. It’s all up to the player, which brings in a discussion of the person playing, not video games at large.

To accuse developers of being misogynists because they have sexy female fan service characters or the token female character is illogical. By that conclusion, that would mean that the developers of games such as the “Call of Duty” and “Wolfenstein” franchises are Nazi sympathizers for featuring Nazi figures in their games. It would mean that Juliet Starling of “Lollipop Chainsaw” would just be that sexy blonde all-American cheerleader sucking on lollipops and not the fierce chainsaw wielding, limb maiming, decapitating zombie slayer that she is in the game.

The fact is, none of these age-old video game tropes are going away anytime soon.

Mario is always going to save Princess Peach, there’s always going to be those random side characters with extraordinary “jiggle” physics that serve absolutely no purpose but to be looked at, killing random characters A and B is always going to an optional objective and the one of the most iconic and fierce video game characters – Samus – is always going to be female.

Originally published in City Times, March 2015.

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