The headlines and Hollywood have been telling audiences that the mistreatment of women in gaming and geekdom is a serious matter requiring serious attention, resources, and societal readjustment.

So why have the media and the usual vociferous celebrities on social media chosen to remain silent regarding the matter of women forcibly and unjustly removed from a major convention in Canada?

Why are they not asking, what exactly is wrong with a woman with a mind of her own?

The Honey Badger Brigade is an artists collective started by several women to explore matters of gender not covered by mainstream media or arts [1]. Recently several members of the group attended the Calgary Expo, a convention for gaming, comics, and other assorted hobbies. Under the guise of promoting a "safe and inclusive" experience for attendees, Calgary Expo forcibly removed the Honey Badger Brigade for displaying a poster in support of "Gamer Gate" (a consumer-led reform movement), and offering an alternative sociopolitical perspective during a public discussion at the convention [2]. In doing so the actions of Calgary Expo raises concerns not only of their commitment to hosting a truly safe and inclusive environment for all attendees, but of the commitment of the media and entertainment industries in faithfully defending free and unfettered speech and artistic expression.

For in an increasingly bold media environment where journalists have no shame in revealing their role not in reporting the news, but in shaping it, an editor for Metro News Canada asked the Calgary Expo if it was true that "those G double G people" (Gamer Gate) were at the convention, and that he "hoped not" it to be the case [3].

It is a troubling display for a variety of reasons: the basic lack of getting ones' facts correct (the Honey Badger Brigade is an entity independent of, and predating, "Gamer Gate"), as well as the implicit meaning behind the words which leaves little to the imagination. Furthermore, Metro News Canada quickly ran a factually inaccurate article falsely identifying the Honey Badger Brigade as being a Gamer Gate group [4]. Perhaps most troubling is that this article was rushed to publication before the most basic of facts could be ascertained, which may have placed undue stress on the Calgary Expo to expel the Honey Badger Brigade to avoid a public relations disaster.

Yet it would not be the first episode of the media, or even media in Canada alone, mischaracterizing Gamer Gate or those tangentially related to it. After the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) aired a factually inaccurate news program mischaracterizing Gamer Gate, the reform movement was quick to publicly and thoroughly debunk the claims of the CBC. Afterwards members of the CBC took to social media to complain that their narrative was being challenged:

[5]

So erroneous was the reporting of the CBC that David Pakman, a neutral journalist and YouTube talk show host, was included in a montage of Gamer Gate participants, leading many to wonder just what or who was informing the CBCs' position on Gamer Gate, if it wasn't based on the neutral reporting of fellow journalists [6].

In each of these cases members of the media slur Gamer Gate participants, those tangentially related to the movement and even neutral third parties, revealing a distinct lack of respect for both impartiality in reporting the news and in the intelligence and basic dignity of their audience and those whose reputations are harmed by misinformed and misguided pursuits of "justice." It is the same sad series of events which can be witnessed through the callous and cowardly behavior of Calgary Expo. The actions of the media and Calgary Expo in dismissing the voices of countless people while blatantly disregarding the facts for the purpose of propagating a false narrative reveals that the call for inclusion and "safe spaces" is lip service meant to appease rabid ideologues, exclude dissenters, and ward off legitimate criticism and open debate. For the reasoning of the Honey Badger Brigade being forcibly removed, or of the media crusading and against Gamer Gate and silencing its female and minority voices in the name of "safe spaces" reveals the utterly absurd premise dictating the actions of the media and Calgary Expo:

And that is their belief that a woman speaking her own mind is dangerous.

*          *          *

What, exactly, does the media and Calgary Expo find so repulsive about a woman speaking her own mind? Why are censorial authoritarians so unable to cope with ideas which deviate from their own? This is no new phenomena. Author and radio show host Ann Coulter was barred from delivering a speech in Canada, and the vice provost of the college which canceled her talk sent a letter all but threatening legal action against Ms. Coulter should she attend [7]. Christina Hoff Sommers, a scholar, author and former professor, routinely has her public spaces turned into a hostile zone from agitated activists who shamelessly proclaim that listeners need a "safe space" from her:

   [8]

A society segregated into "safe spaces" is one where freedom of speech and artistic expression has no refuge. A culture which bows before self-appointed censors is one which has revoked its own right to dissent when it finds itself silenced. While some of the beliefs of the Honey Badger Brigade may be outside the political mainstream, so are those of one whom the entertainment industry has instead chosen to heap awards and accolades upon [9]:

Yet it was not too long ago that many entertainment industries found themselves silenced and censored for being outside the mainstream. The Hays' Code dulled many of the brightest lights in Tinseltown, as Hollywood found itself subject to those proclaiming speech and artistic expression should be limited in the name of "justice." As Bob Mondello of NPR states:

"For decades, it's true, the major film studios were governed by a production code requiring that their pictures be "wholesome" and "moral" and encourage what the studios called "correct thinking [10]."

The comic book industry also has faced the wrath of ideologues and their allies in media and academia during the publication of "Seduction of the Innocent," a book which purported that many societal problems were directly the fault of comics, harming the careers of many in the industry in the name of "justice": making the actions of Calgary Expo towards the Honey Badger Brigade all the more despicable.  As Carol Tilley documents in "Seducing The Innocent: Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics":

"Sociologist C. Wright Mills, writing in the New York Times, called it "a most  commendable use of the professional mind in the service of the public." Margaret Martignoni, director of children's work at the Brooklyn Public Library, writing in a letter that was excerpted for the book's advertising campaign, called Seduction " 'must' reading for thoughtful parents, teachers, librarians, social workers and all other adults concerned with children's reading and with child development." An advertisement for the book in the New York Times carried esteemed children's book editor May Massee's exclamation, "Thanks to you for Publishing Dr. Werthanm's SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT. It is certainly well named...[f]rightening....[c]onvincing....overpowering." Joy Elmer Morgan, editor of the National Education Association's NEA Journal, selected it as the book of the year, recommending it to parents, teachers, and librarians. Although he faulted Wertham's rhetorical strategies, child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim praised the book's "irrefutable evidence" in a review for Library Quaterly. Literary critic Sterling North deemed it "the most important book of the year," and fellow intellectual Clifton Fadiman wrote privately to Wertham that he knew "the book will do a lot of good." [11]

The financial, political, and cultural harm placed upon the comic book industry was immense. As Jeet Heer writes in "The Caped Crusader: Frank Wertham and the Campaign Against Comic Books":

"Countless religious and patriotic organizations organized book burnings to set comics aflame, and leading politicians held congressional hearings where William Gaines, the owner of EC Comics, publisher of the gory Tales From the Crypt and the satiric Mad comic book (later retooled as a magazine),was grilled as if he were a mobster.

As a result of this moral panic, the once-thriving comic-book industry went into a severe decline. In the two years after Wertham's book came out, more than a dozen publishers and hundreds of cartoonists left the field. Those publishers that remained were severely restricted by a self-imposed code that prevented comics from publishing anything but the most anodyne kiddies' fare. Only with the rise of graphic novels in the last few years have comics recovered from the stigma of the Wertham years. For Hajdu [author of a book on this period], the comic-book crackdown was a "purge," a precursor to later panics over rock music and video games [12]."

                        Comic book burning.

 The same quest for "justice" seen with comics enacted by modern day social justice warriors. [13]

The book featured is by C.H. Sommers, a scholar, author, and woman whose only "crime" is a thought-crime. [14]

Make no mistake, the very same authoritarian and censorial arrogance displayed during the era of "Seduction of the Innocent", the Hay's Code, and previous attempts to control freedom of speech and artistic expression is the very same beast which today seeks to rise to the top of the financial food chain in the name of "justice." George Orwell understood this impulse when he wrote of the slogan of all instigators of moral panic and oppression in the name of "justice", of how "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

*          *          *

Our culture now must choose whether it will become a public forum of all peoples and all ideas, or if it will become an Animal Farm ruled by the pigs of the Patreonarchy. On one side are Gators, Sad Puppies, and Honey Badgers. On the other, all the assembled asses and sheep bleating for censorship and strife. Largely unaware are a silent majority, those who have yet found themselves drawn into this conflict.

The history of liberty in Western civilization is in part defined by the concerted efforts of those who believe they fundamentally have the right to be free from opposing perspectives. The guaranteed rights of citizens in a democracy are rarely assaulted outright: instead it is through a thousand paper cuts that Constitutions are shredded, the retreat of every citizen from their due vigilance against the thieves in the night who come disguised in the name of "justice", which results in the barbarians gaining in might until they march unimpeded to the city gates, and no defense can be mounted.

Upon the hope of democracy, upon the right to cherished liberties increasingly denied rests this singular question:

Is the silent majority comprised of mice, or men?

Larry Carney is the author of Dreams of A Distant Planet: Chrono Trigger and the World Revolution of Video Games. A scholar of the culture and industry of gaming, he can be reached on Twitter @JazzKatCritic

Sources and Works Cited:

1.      http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/badgerfesto/

2. http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/19/calgary-expo-faces-consumer-backlash-after-expelling-female-critics-of-feminism/

3. https://twitter.com/Mike_Donachie/status/589092241282637824

4.http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/1343383/rumours-of-gamergate-booth-at-calgary-expo-have-fans-up-in-arms/

5. https://twitter.com/johnbowman/status/531224307645820928

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kC7s7tfaEc

7.http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/ann-coulter-seeks-prosecution-over-speeches/?page=all

8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=CXDaIxp63Zg&app=desktop

9. http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/archive/ambassador.html

10. Mondello, Bob. "Remembering Hollywood's Hays Code, 40 Years On" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189

11. Tilley, Carol L. "Seducing The Innocent: Fredric Wertham And The Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics." Information & Culture 47.4 (2012): 383-413

12. Heer, Jeet. "The Caped Crusade: Frank Wertham and the Campaign Against Comic Books." 4/28/2008. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2008/04/the_caped_crusader.html

13. http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/06/18/when-a-feminist-near-a-fireplace-grabbed-hold-of-a-copy-of-the-war-against-boys-this-happened/

 14. http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/06/18/when-a-feminist-near-a-fireplace-grabbed-hold-of-a-copy-of-the-war-against-boys-this-happened/