Meet the Woman Helping GamerGate Victims Come Out of the Shadows
“For me what was most striking about that video was that this guy was harassing this woman but there were tons of people around. It was an officially sponsored event, and he just felt comfortable enough to harass this woman, he was part of an environment in which he felt like he could do that.”
Shannon Sun-Higginson was investigating sexual harassment in gaming before Gamergate was even a thing. She almost single-handedly made GTFO: The Movie, a documentary about women in gaming debuted SXSW in March, stoking an ongoing debate over accusations that gaming culture is sexist. The film was released for the general public on iTunes last week and TIME caught up with Sun-Higginson to talk about the reactions she’s been getting, why gaming matters, and what surprised her about the trolls.
You said you’re not a big gamer yourself, so why did you make this documentary?
A friend of mine sent me a video of a woman being sexually harassed during a gaming tournament. It was 15 minutes long. I was shocked, like many people are when they see something like that. So I just started shooting it that weekend. I knew that sexual harassment was rampant, but I didn’t know just how bad it was.
For me what was most striking about that video was that this guy was harassing this woman but there were tons of people around. It was an officially sponsored event, and he just felt comfortable enough to harass this woman, he was part of an environment in which he felt like he could do that. One of the things that we really try to get across is that watching it happen to other people is being complicit.
