Fund This: Anita Sarkeesian Seeks Support To Spotlight ‘Ordinary Women’

Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: Ordinary Women: Daring To Defy History

Asking For: $200,000 on Seed & Spark

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): $16,435

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 28

Description: With her web series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency looked to expose the sexist tendencies of video game development. Across eight episodes, she got her point across, all while drawing a titanic number of hateful comments and threats in response.

Now, Sarkeesian is working on a new series, and she’s not looking to stir the pot quite as vigorously. Instead, she is hoping to spotlight powerful women from throughout history through a web series called Ordinary Women: Daring To Defy History.

The first season of Ordinary Women will examine five female historical figures who rose to prominence in spite of the patriarchal forces opposing them. While the professions of the women Sarkeesian has chosen to explore range from computing to piracy, their stories share common threads of defiance and perseverance. As Sarkeesian explains in her pitch video, these themes can easily be applies to modern life as well.

Creator Bio: Sarkeesian is no stranger to video games; she funded Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games by raising more than $158,000 on Kickstarter. She’s more famous, however, for the backlash her project received. Her relationship with her haters was at the center of 2014’s Gamergate controversy.

Best Perk: Backers who contribute at least $25 will receive a postcard pack featuring the “defiant five” subjects of Ordinary Women.

Why You Should Fund It: Sarkeesian isn’t the first person to use the web series format as a means of discussing historical women who don’t receive enough attention, but she has a unique perspective that commands attention for her project. As she puts it, Ordinary Women isn’t just important as an educational program. It also counters a common argument against her appeals for female representation. “During [my] work I’ve often heard people say it’s unrealistic or historically inaccurate to have female characters in media that are more than just passive sidekicks or eye candy,” she says in her pitch video, “but history itself tells a very different story.” If Sarkeesian’s philosophy jibes with your own, feel free to give Ordinary Women a look.

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