My writer and I sat down and wrote a huge list of names of women to consider. It was really important to us to have a broad range of women from across generations and cultures. We didn't want to make it Western-focused, we wanted to make sure it was international and that it had an intersectional lens.
Anita SarkeesianThe other thing is that it's really hard to separate out the harassment from everything we do. When we started creating Tropes, we were hyper-aware of the intense scrutiny, the intense harassment, and the intense pressure to do something meaningful given the attention both positive and negative. That's carried over in terms of making sure that I produce the best work that I can, that's the most accurate, the most sensitive and engaged.
Anita SarkeesianThe US bombed them back to traditional values โ feminism does not exist in Japan. While I donโt like judging an entire cultureโฆthat does not excuse them.
Anita SarkeesianI really wanted to explore a range of women who aren't necessarily perfect, heroic women. I wanted to series to influence creative people to include more women in their work, especially historic works.
Anita SarkeesianI came back to this idea of telling the stories of women who aren't in all of the history books. Their names are not up there next to male names that we've know since we were little kids. Ching Shih, for example, was a pirate commander from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. She was one of the most fearsome pirates, why is her name not included when we list the names of great pirates like Blackbeard?
Anita Sarkeesian