Anita Sarkeesian, a well-known feminist youtuber has spent the last few years talking about the representation of women in the media; more recently moving over to specifically talking about video games. This is something that needs to be discussed because there is a significant difference between the representation of men and women in video games. I personally have enjoyed many of her works, however there are many people who have gotten extremely angry over her videos to the point that she has received dozens of nasty death threats and more. And yet she refuses to stop speaking. She was scheduled to speak here at USU on Oct. 15, however she canceled the talk due to safety concerns. Monday night USU received a letter threatening “the deadliest school shooting in history” if her talk was not canceled. The writer of this email blamed feminist for ruining their life and claimed that feminists are a poison to America. The FBI quickly got involved and is currently investigating to find out the sender of the letter. Due to Utah’s concealed carry laws, the university could not ban those with concealed-weapon permits from bringing their weapons. Despite requests from Anita Sarkeesian for metal detectors or pat downs, there was no way to assure that there would be no guns in the auditorium during her speech, so Anita Sarkeesian decided that for her own safety, she was going to cancel her talk. The campus planned to increase security measures and personnel, however it was not enough to cancel out the worry caused by this threat in an area where concealed weapons are allowed. While authorities state that this threat is much like others she has received, Anita Sarkeesian was not assured enough to continue with her talk with the threats out there; which is perfectly understandable.
She sent out a series of tweets that have gotten global attention, quickly being picked up by ABC, BBC and other national and international news sources. Many people are claiming this is a gun control problem, others are claiming it has nothing to do with that and is an issue of misogyny and an attempt to silence strong minded women. Still others believe that it is a combination of both. No matter what the opinions are on which aspect is more important or should be discussed more, many on campus were extremely upset about the situation, and frustrations were expressed at everything from the fact that the campus would not ban guns from this specific event to the fact that someone actually tried to shut her up by sending a death threat. Many students decided that this was not a situation that was going to be tolerated, arranging a peaceful protest outside the Taggert Student Center during the time in which she was supposed to speak. Chants of “We will not be silenced” came from students of all genders who were angry at the way the situation had been handled. Particularly the fact that a woman who came to speak had effectively been silenced. It became a matter of free speech for many. The attitude was that whether or not you agreed, the fact that she could not come and speak to people safely was something that they were not going to tolerate on campus. While it was a short protest, it was loud and sent a clear message. Women here at Utah State are not going to be silenced, they are not going to shut up. Voices will be heard and it doesn’t really matter who doesn’t like it because as this situation made clear, there are many, many people here at Utah State University who are support Anita Sarkeesian and the fact that all people of all genders are equal and they want people to be able to be heard and not silenced by threats, and they are willing to stand for that belief.
