Feminist Frequency to pivot toward combating “gendered online harassment”

FF discloses financials, announces plans for new "masculinity in games" video series.

Sam Machkovech – Jan 26, 2015 7:55 PM | 1.4k

Credit: Feminist Frequency

On Friday, Anita Sarkeesian, host of the Feminist Frequency YouTube series and frequent target of GamerGate-related online harassment, published a year-end financial report as per the requirements of operating FF as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The report included an open letter to supporters, a boatload of stats, and a detailed list of the nonprofit's plans for the new year—including an expected slew of videos but also an official pivot to focus on "gendered online harassment."

After describing Feminist Frequency's genesis as a video project meant to "bring discussions of feminist theory to a wider audience"—a pitch she used in her successful 2012 Kickstarter campaign—Sarkeesian wrote that her experiences over the past two years, full of "daily vitriol" from online commenters, have forced her to reexamine her organization's purpose. "As a result, we have expanded Feminist Frequency’s mission to include advocacy around ending online hate and abuse, analyzing and advancing awareness of how gendered harassment operates online," she wrote.

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The letter said that current efforts include consulting gigs with "tech and game companies" regarding online harassment within their communities, along with helping other active online feminists come up with "long-term solutions to deal with the epidemic of online abuse and create mechanisms for support." The report's list of plans for 2015 doesn't specify exactly how that mission might change or grow, other than hoping to create "a network with a variety of different programs and hosts analyzing media from a systemic/intersectional/anti-oppression lens."

In describing the organization's future YouTube content, Sarkeesian revealed two new video series set to launch this year. Both seem targeted at the series' loudest critics who complained that Feminist Frequency videos focused too tightly on the series' announced, and heretofore under-explored, subject matter of negative female portrayals in games. One will focus on "representations of men and masculinity in video games," and the other will highlight gaming's "positive female characters."

The report contained detailed social media and traffic breakdowns, along with a list of Sarkeesian's major media appearances in the past year and a total disclosure of the nonprofit's revenue and expenditures. The operation apparently ran on peanuts until Q4 of last year, at which point it received a swell of donations—nearly $398,000, which made up 90 percent of Feminist Frequency's revenue. Sounds like a Colbert bump to us.

In a Kickstarter update, Sarkeesian also went to the trouble of detailing how the original Kickstarter tally of $158,000 was spent by way of a pie chart. In that update, she spoke further about online bullying—"gendered online harassment is not a new phenomenon, but the intensity of cyber mobs, especially in gaming, is increasing in frequency and severity"—and reached the ultimate conclusion that her work has been worth the trouble. "Developers who were responsible for some of the games that I have critiqued in my series have graciously accepted the criticism and have promised to do better in the future," Sarkeesian wrote.