A big issue is being made of “misogyny” online, but I’ve found that online comments are just out and out abusive – racist, misogynistic, etc.
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Why Make This A “Women’s” Issue?
April 6th, 2007
20 Comments
Because Oliver, women insist they are more disempowered, and more discriminated againt, and more powerless than everyone else!
I don’t expect you to understand, what with your Jessica Alba, and your Buffy and your Kardashian, and all of that stuff.
Face it Oliver, you’re just a hater, bigot, and misogynist. (Me too
)
Look, even Lehrer was a patriarchal misogynist bigot. He doesn’t mention women at all in his song, National Brotherhood week.
National Brotherhood Week – Tom Lehrer
Should online threats be permissible? Of course not. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Is their racism and sexism online? Yes.
Is every sexist statement a product of misogyny? No, but claiming it is creates a certain amount of power, especially, sigh, in our left wing blogosphere where any critique of feminism is considered impermissible.
I think there’s a valid question here — comment trolls tend to be really vicious everywhere, but ARE there a disproportionate number of disproportionately nasty posts directed at women? I don’t know if there are, but I’m willing to consider that there might be.
And not all of them are anonymous comment postings, either — remember Gerard Vanderleun mocking Jane Hamsher’s breast cancer a few months back (and then defending it with, “Well, I didn’t know she actually HAD breast cancer, so obviously a joke about breast cancer would have been totally okay if she didn’t”).
“but ARE there a disproportionate number of disproportionately nasty posts directed at women?”
Yes. For evidence read Fark.com.
For many the Internet is still considered a boys club and women are far game, even more so than most other minority groups here.
“No, but claiming it is creates a certain amount of power, “
5 points to jerry for media literacy beyond the call of duty.
And I would direct you to the kind of hate email we get at Media Matters. It’s not gender specific, its just nuts.
What is great about FARK, is that it is a wonderful example of the greatness of anonymous free speech.
It takes an awful lot of crap to get banned at FARK, and usually it is due to blatant trolling or posting NSFW images in the forums.
Apart from that, 97% of the speech there is anonymous. Yes, there are crude statements made all of the time, but in actuality there is very little hate speech, and when it crops up, the vast majority of the comments in there condemn the FARKer with the hate problem.
Women post there and they do not claim they need some sort of safe environment. Men post there. Dems, Repubs, everyone posts there.
It is funny and sometimes harsh.
Very rarely hatefilled.
Often enlightening or educational.
And pretty much the majority of it is anonymous.
It is amazing how such a low brow site beats the shit out of the behavior seen on so many “sophisticated” sites left, right, and center.
shut up, bitch.
I’d have to agree with you, Oliver. I think that this is being overblown quite a bit by the chicks. There are miserable people everywhere who post nasty comments that I’m betting they wouldn’t dare say in person – the anonymity of the internet being the last bastion of free speech and all. I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing either – it is what it is, and it certainly isn’t exclusive to women.
Any woman who whines about misogyny on the internet needs to suck it up and deal like everybody else.
On another note I think this all traces back to the continual erosion of manners, politeness, civility, and the like. But that’s everyone. And it’s not just an internet thing. If you want to see a rude asshole chances are you just need to step out your front door these days.
I think that this is being overblown quite a bit by the chicks.
Something about this seems smirkworthy, but never mind.
I will say that much of the flap over Kathy Sierra wasn’t just because they were abusive, it was because the comments were graphic threats of rape and degradation in addition to murder.
It’s very easy for men to say that these are just idiots being idiots, but a woman who doesn’t take seriously even poorly-spelled threats of rape hasn’t been paying attention to the world at large.
The fact that women still have to take self-defense classes and carry around rape whistles is reason for all of us to be ashamed. It does a disservice to the problem to say that the women should learn to suck it up and deal.
“… this is being overblown quite a bit by the chicks.”
2nd smirk…
And lets remember, “… women insist they are more disempowered, and more discriminated againt, and more powerless than everyone else!”
I see some other foot swalowing and straw dogging; let’s ignore them, and RTFA. Thad made the only specific reference, and it supports the women’s view. Want more?
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2051580,00.html
Does anyone still believe that men get the type, volume, and intensity of abuse that women do? Show me. Find threads to prove your point. Till then, your opinions rate with Fox “News” commentary.
Does anyone still believe that men get the type, volume, and intensity of abuse that women do?
Yes. The problem is the abuse, not the men. Violent people are the cause, generation to generation, both sexes (as far as my purely anecdotal experience tells me).
Show Me
Go outside, look around, meet more people, talk with them. Ask men too.
Getting upset over something someone said that might offend someone else, and therefore on their behalf, is nothing more than spinning your tires.
Guys, I am a chick. Just thought I’d let you know.
I don’t think suck it up and deal is a disservice to the problem of women whining when some jackoff on the internet anonymously makes threats from, let’s say, Timbuktu. Particularly when women on the net can be just as violent, uncivil, threatnening … take your pick and insert here. The whole matter of the fact is that the net is a fantastic equalizer – regardless of race, color, creed, sexuality – you will eventually be insulted, harassed, and threatened. Unless there is a specific attack that puts out your name, address, car you drive, or things of a personal and identifiable nature then it’s not credible. Hence, shut up and deal. Sticks and stones, Love.
And before someone asserts that I do take my personal safety extremely seriously, I do. I just refuse to be scared all the time.
Getting back to it though, Oliver is right. This is not an exclusive women thing, so why are they bitching the loudest? And I don’t buy that powerless descrimination crap either …
Janus, I won’t discuss the entire article, but Jessica mentions a study that showed women got 25 times more harassment online than men. 163 times per day.
You can read that study yourself, I did tonight. I posted it about it at Matthew Yglesias’ hangout.
Here’s what I found out when I read that study:
Wow, you guys should read the study.
http://www.enre.umd.edu/content/rmeyer-assessing.pdf
The study isn’t completely bogus, but it doesn’t show what it is being claimed to show.
First, the study has nothing to do with blogs. The study studied only chat on #irc channels.
The figure of 25 times more harassment to female names comes from Malicious Private Messages sent to “silent” “bots”, that is, automated programs that were programmed to do nothing, on these three open, non-password protected #irc channels: #teen, #guildwars, and #wow. Not blog. Chat. Chat on a channel called #teen.
Malicious means sexually explicit or threatening but the study never defines what a threatening message is.
Are you surprised that females on the #teen chat line are getting lots of sexually explicit messages?
Is this really representative of blogs like MY or feministing, or feministe or FDL?
But the truth is also that when they put humans on the chat lines, the number drops from 25 times to only 6 times.
That’s because they are also shocked to say that females got on average 163 malicious emails per day. But that comes from Table 3, which examined “silent” humans on the chat channels #usa and #allnightcafe.
Again, there is no breakout of sexually explicit to threatening.
ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT ON A CHAT CHANNEL CALLED #ALLNIGHTCAFE THAT FEMALES ARE BEING SOUGHT FOR SEX?
DOES THAT MAKE IT HARASSMENT?
On that channel, silent females got 163 messages and silent males got 27.5 on average. Or about six times as many.
What this shows is that chat lines with names like #allnightcafe are places that people seek sex. It has nothing to do with harassing women in the blogosphere.
Apart from that the science is just shitty. They ran these experiments sequentially, that is, six weeks of women bots, eight weeks of male bots, or one week of female person, one week of male person.
That’s an improper method of data collection, because time is not being controlled for. That is time of year, or events in the calendar, or seasonal events, or graduation, or school arrival, or anything like that.
And since this was really a study of computer security on irc channels, the researches did not define threatening or sexually explicit. There is also no discussion of who or how the messages were rated or discussion of interrater reliability. Why? Because they weren’t interested. This was a study of #irc computer attacks, not a study of #irc sexual harassment.
So, Matt Yglesias, why don’t you with your Harvard Philosopher eyes, take a look at this study and actually analyze it. Does it make the point that Jessica Valenti says it makes?
And in fairness to Valenti, lots of newspaper articles and press releases played up this aspect of the research.
Again, the study was about computer security not about harassment and was not set up to distinguish consensual sexual requests from threats. That is, they went looking on all night chat lines — I would think that women on all night chat lines like the men, can expect, and seek out sexual contacts. On those all night chat lines, men got 1/6th the sexual contacts that women did. Is that harassment? It’s an all night chat line!!
The paper was published in a refereed conference. Not a conference about sexual harassment, but a conference about, wait for it, computer security. The International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, Philadelphia, 2006 to appear.
Matthew Yglesias, you have nicely critiqued quite a few studies in your day. Please read this one. Is this one making the point that Valenti and many others are saying it is making?
Posted by: jerry on April 8, 2007 12:58 AM
Oh, the conclusion of the study is pertinent too.
The conclusion was this,
5. Conclusions
In summary, the threat of attack on IRC seems to be rather low. The only type of attack that occurs consistently daily is malicious private messages, and in and of themselves they pose no threat to computer security. This threat does not seem to depend on whether or not a user is active in a channel. Users with female names are, however, far more likely to receive malicious private messages, slightly more likely to receive files and links, and equally likely to be attacked in other ways. This implies that the attacks are carried out by humans selecting targets rather than automated scripts sending attacks to everyone in the channel.
So they do not make any conclusions about the levels of harassment. They use the different levels of harassment in the conclusion only to show that these “attacks” were from humans not bots.
The study has nothing to do with harassment of women on the blogosphere, and it concludes nothing about the harassment of women on the blogosphere.
Posted by: jerry on April 8, 2007 01:01 AM
Jerry,
Even if the main focus were chat rooms, they still apply to blogs because people are posting comments and the like.
I do believe that misogny is rampant. Look at the comments made against Ann Coulter. Granted she is repulsive but it is not enough for people
(men in particular) to criticize her views, they must make comments about her appearance. Some of these comments are quite crude, such as calling her a drag queen or Skeletor.
I don’t think the same necessarily applies to men. Even if it were the case that some men are criticized for their appearance, it still doesn’t have the same bite as with women because of society’s objectification of women’s bodies on a daily basis.
LMMatthews,
Just because such activity is commonplace on the net doesn’t make it right. It should not be tolerated.
Um, maybe I visit the wrong blogs, but I’ve never seen any attempts at cybering going on in a blog’s comments.
That’s what the study found. That in all night cafe, there were attempts at cybering going on, just like what happens in meatspace bars.
I do have to bring up the Fahrenheit 451 question.
What do we do about ugly speech in forums?
We can’t make jokes about Ann Coulter’s appearance. We can’t make jokes that are misogynistic. We can’t make jokes that harm obese people. We can’t make jokes that call people idiots because that harms the mentally ill. We can’t make jokes about cancer. We can’t make jokes about race, creed, color, religion, age, gender, gender preference, gender identification, veteran status, marriage status.
What will be left when we are actively policing speech in forums (and thought in general?)
I don’t think the same necessarily applies to men. Even if it were the case that some men are criticized for their appearance, it still doesn’t have the same bite as with women because of society’s objectification of women’s bodies on a daily basis.
That’s just sexism. Not all men objectify women, but you are okay with the demeaning of men because some do.
At the feminist sites Pandagon, Feministe, Feministing, I Blame the Patriarchy the comments are filled with basically hate speech about men and fathers. Men and fathers objectify. They rape. They abandon their kids. They harass. They are misogynists. They have small dicks. They can’t make it with women without force. They are brutal to commenters that disagree with them.
Why shouldn’t those sites be closed down?
As LMMatthews says so well, the net is the great equalizer. You will be insulted. You also have the most perfect safe environment for discussion that we have seen todate.
What is wrong with making threats of rape and murder against women a woman’s issue?
Addressing issues that women face does not mean that men are of less importance. It means that women are as equally important.
In fact it would be exteremly helpful if more men were to actually help in dealing with issues that women face rather than saying “how come it’s not about me?”
Jerry, it may surprise you that not all men are decent human beings. Some are assholes and shitheads. Unless you are such a man it’s not about you personally.
It surprises me, though it is not uncommon, that you appear to want to defend and identify yourself with them merely because they are men.
I made a simple challenge:
“Does anyone still believe that men get the type, volume, and intensity of abuse that women do? Show me. Find threads to prove your point. Till then, your opinions rate with Fox “News” commentary.”
Still waiting…
I am sorry Janus, I find your comments abusive. Several people here tried to engage your ideas constructively and all you can do is ignore them and toss them on the heap as “Fox News.”
This is typical of someone that has no way to rebut an argument — find someway to dismiss the other.
I spent a consider time discussing the study that has been claimed to say that women are harassed 25 times more than men that was addressed in the link YOU gave us. And you just ignored it.
If you want threads with heaps of abuse, just visit Pandagon.net, feministe.us, or feministing. Search for comments by Marcotte or Donna Darko. See how they call men misogynists and rapists and small dicked.
But don’t bother responding, because you are not intellectually honest.
Jerry, I am familiar with the sites you mention, and have not found “comments by Marcotte or Donna Darko” that seem, to me, to justify your description. Perhaps you can cite some, by URL or linking. Also, infrequent remarks, by a couple of individuals, on their own blogs, fail make your “threads with heaps of abuse” point.
That said, please pardon me. I did not intend abuse, I appreciate your criticism, valid IMO, of the article, and did not have you in mind with the Fox “News” remark. I do want to know whether anyone could, “Find threads…” as I said.
However, that the article skews to the problem does prove the problem minor. The links in this thread cite entire sites loaded with misogyny; based on that, imagine the kinds of mindless mass threats that individual women must occasionally endure, as well as the few cited examples.
I do not mean to imply that women have more scorn in cyberspace (see link below) than meatspace. I do suggest an analogy: spam for hate. I get almost no junk snail mail, yet spam floods the internet, not because it works well, but because it costs so little. Fortunately, I rarely see the megabytes of spam sent to me. Eventually, I hope the internet grows heuristics for hate speech as well.
At present, I don’t even know of gay or muslim men suffering such prolonged and massive attacks as these (and other) women have endured for being women. Again, I’d like to know.
In Why Aren’t We Shocked? – Volume 21 No. 2 – Winter 2006 – Rethinking Schools Online
“In the shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked only the girls…”
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/shoc212.shtml