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I'm Anita Sarkeesian and I run the video web series called Feminist Frequency.

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I started Feminist Frequency because I felt like feminism was sort of trapped in academic spaces and

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politically radical spaces. They talked about systems of oppression and privilege

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but it was in this language that was really hard to understand and I wanted to create a

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space where feminism was easy to engage with in an accessible way.

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I think that popular culture is a common language that we all speak. The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote,

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that the universe is made up of stories, not of atoms and I really like that quote because I feel like

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pop culture is one of the ways that we learn about ourselves and the world around us.

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There's often a lot of hostility towards watching TV like it's this big, bad, horrible thing

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that's going to warp our brains, but I just don't think that's true. I'm a fan and I love stories

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and part of being a fan for me is to enjoy and celebrate characters and stories and programs

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that I love while simultaneously being critical of the myths and representations that the media can perpetuate.

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I think it's important to critically engage with video games and comic books and movies and TV shows

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because it's a reflection of our society. I think that there's a lot of negative stereotypes and stories

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in the media that work to amplify and perpetuate oppressive social norms.

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I don't think that we should just disconnect from the media and throw our TVs out but that we should

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equip ourselves with critical media literacy tools to creatively and critically engage with the media

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and fan communities have been doing this for decades.

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I chose a video web series format because I wanted to speak clearly and directly on some of these really

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complex issues. I put my videos on YouTube because I wanted to speak to my generation about

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systems of privilege and oppression and feminism and increasingly we're an audio-visual culture.

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We're engaging with popular culture through remixing and videoblogging in really interesting ways and

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I feel like that's where the learning is actually happening. But sadly educational institutions and

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academia are pretty hostile towards popular culture.

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I get a lot of support from people who really like my videos and they've even been used as educational

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tools in classrooms and screened at film festivals. I've actually gotten messages from mothers who've

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sat down and watched them with their daughters, which is so heartwarming to me.

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But I also get a lot of harassment as do most other feminist bloggers and women on YouTube.

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You might be surprised at the amount of times that I get comments that say "Get Back in the Kitchen"

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or "Go Make Me a Sandwich." It's nearly on a daily basis and I feel like in order to deal with that we

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also need to look at the inequities that exist in our society offline

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and how that reflects in these online spaces.

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But one way that I personally deal with comments is to moderate them because I really want to create

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a space where people can come and engage with feminist ideas where they don't have to risk

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being harassed or ridiculed.

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You know I think of it sort of like my living room, so if someone came to my house and started saying

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"Get back in the kitchen" I would not-so-kindly kick them out and I think of my website

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and my YouTube channel in the same way.

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You can check out my videos at FeministFrequency.com

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and you can also follow me on Twitter @femfreq