Describing GamerGate as "feminism versus gamers" (with the implication that the gamers were in the right) is a very gross oversimplification. I was there when it happened, and it's a lot more complex than you're suggesting.

@F1Krazy Multiple articles came out around the same time (many coordinated on the same day) talking about how gamers as an audience are bad people and companies shouldn't pander to their sexist members. As an example - archive.is/9NxHy#selection-615.7-615.81 You're free to argue that the intent wasn't to paint all people who play video games as anti-women, but that was a widely held perception.

And I apologize if my opinion that gamers were unequivocally in the right shows through, though I'm not sure I agree that it does in the answer. I'm obviously biased though, if you think there's a more neutral way to mention it I'll consider changing it since I was trying to keep this answer focused on information and not arguing one side is right.

I'm not going to argue anything, all I'll say on the matter is that the GamerGate crowd were not exactly squeaky clean themselves. I fell for the whole "ethical standards in gaming journalism" thing until I came across pro-GG sites like The Ralph Retort and saw what their idea of "ethical journalism" was, and it wasn't pretty.

I am a bit confused here, how many works do we have in various forms of media that show men with all the power and women with none but reversing it once is a major problem?

@JoeW Other than relative popularity and the fact that Barbie came out recently so there's an audience to hear people talk about it, Barbie is presented by the director as a feminist film. I added a citation to the answer. With that said if you accept their summarization of Barbie, I think you would be hard-pressed to find even an old film where women gain legal equality and then the protagonist fights to rescind their rights, and this is presented as righteous. Further if you did a commenter on the "conservative" side of the line I mentioned would probably agree that's just as bad.

And a single film showing women in power is a major issue while there are many other works of arts across many different mediums showing women without power isn't an issue?

@JoeW Was there another major work of pop art released this year you think they should be covering as anti-woman by the same logic? Ultimately they have an audience that expects certain topics to be covered but there was a split in the "anti-woke" community of whether Barbie was could be interpreted as anti-feminist.

I think you missed the point of my comment which is that a single work of art has people upset when there are thousands that are the exact opposite.

@JoeW One work of art that was the highest grossing film of the year, at least top 10 highest grossing works of art of the year. As I said I didn't see it so my interest is just popcorn observation but it's one of the most culturally relevant works of art this year. I'm also not convinced there are thousands of well-known works of art that have a comparable misogynist plot as Barbie's presented by critics as misandrist.

I am not sure that the Barbies "hold all the power" in the beginning while the Kens are playthings: everyone is a plaything, that's the tongue-in-cheek fun the writers had at the Barbie phenomenon. The Barbie POTUS and Barbie Physicist start out very vapid and superficial and poke fun at Mattel in a sly way: "See, we're not sexist in our toys!". They're all toys and, though the Barbies seemingly matter more than the Kens, no one does anything useful. Main Barbie however grows as a "person", main Ken doesn't, or rather he happily segues into sexism, and a crisis ensues.

A single film for a single year compared to all the other sources of media that have men in power and women have none?

@JoeW Seems like you’re looking for a reasoned balance of depictions or power dynamic across media through time. Whether or not it makes sense to expect that, it’s not part of how a lot of people think about things. As in, they’re not comparing the number of films that show men in power with the number of films that show women in power. It’s not relevant to the discourse because most of the parties involved don’t see it as relevant.