There is only one thing you need to know about Anita Sarkeesian and people like her, and understanding it will suddenly answer all the questions that take the form "why does this feminist believe this seemingly contradictory thing?" It's quite simple, and comes from looking at these sorts of feminists' actions, not their words. Ready? Here it is: feminists like Sarkeesian will say whatever they need to say, no matter how batshit crazy or hypocritical, in order to obtain the greatest amount of attention, social power and consensus possible. They do this by taking advantage of the rhetorical weapons that have been created via the present-day cultural trends of political correctness and social shaming, which were originally designed to combat racism, bigotry, and sexism. These rhetorical weapons shut down rational debate, shut down intelligent dissent, and shut down barriers that would prevent them from gaining more attention, power, and consensus. Why does Sarkeesian criticize a lack of gender choice for the main character in games? Because criticizing t  36c8  he lack of gender choice of the main character gets her more attention, power, and consensus. Why does Sarkeesian turn around and say there should be no choice of gender for the main character? Because saying the main character should only be one gender gets her more attention, power, and consensus. Why does Sarkeesian bitch about the level of violence in Doom 4 and display a stunning inability to understand its legacy in gaming culture, despite supposedly being a game culture expert? Because bitching about the level of violence in Doom 4 gets her more attention, power, and social consensus. Why does Sarkeesian ignore the point that you could just choose what games to play or not play? Because ignoring the player's choice to play what they want gets her more attention, power, and social consensus. Why does Sarkeesian say anyone who criticizes her knowledge of gaming is a sexist, and then display a fundamental lack of knowledge about gaming? Why does Sarkeesian lie about Hitman Absolution? Why does she cherry-pick damsels in distress but ignore all contradictory examples, oftentimes from the same genre, series, or even the exact same game? I think you get the picture.   Attention comes from controversy and constantly coming in first while competing in the oppression olympics.   Power comes from having enough popularity to be invited to gaming conventions, game companies, E3, interviews, etc., all of which feed back into her success and power.   Social consensus comes from the feminist dogma that states you may not question certain deeply held doctrines, and to do so means you run the risk of being accused of being a witch a sexist, bigot, etc. You maintain social consensus by saying all the right things, but constantly pushing things to become more extreme. You stomp the gas, always, or risk being run over by the machine you're helping to fuel.   So, the next time you find yourself asking how Sarkeesian or other prominent feminists can be so blind to their own apparent ignorance or apparent hypocrisy, just repeat this: dogmatic feminists say what they say because it gets them more attention, social power, and consensus. There is no rational underpinning. There is no respect for creating testable hypotheses, experimentation, data, and efforts to disprove your own theories. Their dogma destroys these things, and the only public members left are lying hypocrites out of necessity: if they didn't play the feminism game, they'd have been just another victim along the way.