Misogyny Online

Yes, like the comments that come out on liberal forums when Michelle Malkin is mentioned.

somehow i've never come across a single thread where "women are attacked" that hasn't been linked-to as an example of such a thread. how did i end up reading blogs only where misogynist commenters don't hang out?

Sigh, yes steve, some liberal-trolls are guilty of this too. MY and other bloggers have been quite evenhanded in describing how women bloggers in general get harassed. In fact, there are some women who don't even blog on politics, who get harassed. What are we contrarians who think everything is about the left to make of THAT?

But you know, the actual issue.

Yes, like the comments that come out on liberal forums when Michelle Malkin is mentioned

Agree entirely, though it's clearly not all liberal forums. There's some weird licensing thing going on, because my general sense is that some fairly vile misogynistic things are said by people who are regular commenters and who expect to be around when the topic is not Malkin (or Coulter, for that matter). The first couple times I saw it, I thought, "Whatever." But it's frequent enough and targeted enough that that's clearly not the right response.

This seems to be a phenomenon that reaches all forms of abusive language, not just sexism. Any thread involving, or responding to, a woman, homosexual, black, Hispanic, etc. will naturally draw out vile and repulsive comments. People are hardwired to notice differences in others. Without any restraint on commenting on these differences, you'll get a lot of nasty stuff you wouldn't hear outside of the pixelated world.

This applies to ideological differences too. I've been called a Stalinist, a Leninist, and a mysoginist on some of the threads here (I'm not on all three counts, by the way). Resident contrarian Al is frequently compared to a Stalinist lackey, just parroting party line propaganda. Political arguments get heated in the real world too, but you can get a lot less milage out of calling someone a Stalinist in a debate hall than you can on the internet.

There's really no way around this problem without massive censorship from site proprietors, it seems.

I remember what the chat was like back when I played Diablo II...idiots and oddballs flock to the internet. The people who are sexist on the street and those who are sexist in chat threads probably aren't the same. I imagine those who insult women online probably can barely even talk to them in person.

Hard to believe anyone ever actually held those utopian ideals about the internet...a bit of doublethink to believe that society is full of racists and sexists but everyone would be respectful on the internet.

I do wonder what exactly those comment threads look like though. I don't think misogny would last long on these threads, for example...someone would shout it down. Perhaps those other blogs have a different culture/readership? Also, does anyone know what led to people making death threats against Kathy Sierra? I'm curious to know how the whole things started.

I've never seen one of those women-bashing comment sites, but I have no doubt they exist and are every bit as horrible as Valenti says they are. It seems pretty obvious that the perpetrators are sexually frustrated men, taking out their anger at women where they can get away with doing so.

And there's pretty much no way to stop them. We can disapprove of the sexist trolls, and ban them from forums and wherever, but the internet is purely anonymous and they'll always be back.

I'd say a society where frustrated assholes take out their anger on a computer screen is infinitely preferable to one where they do it in real life. Hopefully the former doesn't lead to the latter...

The sort of hate that top female bloggers face is indeed really scary.

Also, I just took another look at that Jessica Valenti picture...I had forgotten how ridiculous that "controversy" was. A few other women in the picture are standing in the exact same pose...

I find it funny the extent to which people will say things on the internet they would never ever say to someone's face.

This seems to be a phenomenon that reaches all forms of abusive language, not just sexism.

Certain sorts of language are particularly problematic. Given...I'm not even sure what: the gender of the Web, the threat that men can pose to women, the targeted nature of some of these things, the fact that I just now assume that female bloggers who discuss sex (particularly if they're attractive) will get vile emails...I think the ultra-sexism is much more problematic than much of what you are referencing.

And no one thinks Al is a Stalinist; we think he's a fascist tool.

Besides the comments and blog posts, women journalists and bloggers seem to suffer more stalking behavior and threats of violence, with a greater likelihood of verbal threats on the internet as well.

I'm not sure how to treat this. Attacking women for being women is obviously dispicable.

On the one hand, 100% agree with the above respondant's comment about Malkin (plus similar remarks about Ann Coulter, the Corner's Kathryn Lopez, Pam at Atlas Shruggs, etc). I was shocked and disgusted by the hateful remarks directed at Margaret Cho a couple of years ago.

Patriarchy and the objectification of women is thousands of years old. It's everywhere. That plus online anonymity is where the misogyny comes from.

On the other hand, the notion that people shouldn't be attacked because they're women is ludicrous. But attacking women for being women is disgusting.

There is a difference between "indifference to the plight of women" and the inability to do anything about it. I piously wish that women would not be harrassed online, but other than not doing it myself, and ignoring trolls that do it, I can do nothing more.

When women are harrassed in real life, it is always possible to do something about it if you're present, because people are not anonymous. Shame works.

Online, if you attempt to shame a troll, you feed the troll. Do not feed the trolls. Better yet, get a technological solution to mod down trolls.

As for this being some huge societal problem... well, for women like Jessica Valenti it probably does rate. But she's in the upper .01% of women in terms of power, fame and visibility. I'm not convinced that the average woman online has much to fear from anonymous harrassment. Three or four ugly cases over the last month don't seem to me like a particularly compelling problem by comparison to many other social problems.

As for the stats Valenti uses in the Telegraph, well, they're not very convincing. You can read my comment on her site about that.

Ultra-sexism is definitely a problem, perhaps the largest problem, for a number of reasons, namely because women are the largest "minority" group around, and because abusive sexist language has a very real and very scary tendency to blend into rape fantasies and other sexually abusive contexts.

I didn't mean to equate sexism with calling Al a Communist-Nazi. But I stand by my point that this is a pheomenon of the internet that won't be easily stopped.

Net anonymity.

Want to clean up the net? Make people vouch for their statements.

One additional point is that commenters on blogs want to get noticed--the hope is that another commenter will agree, or better yet, disagree with them, so they can join an argument. It's fun, and it's probably why most of us here do so.

Ultra-sexism, and other extreme speech, is a sure-fire way of getting noticed on a thread (unless it's a thread populated by like-thinking commenters, in which case it's a race for the bottom).

Matt: I can't find an e mail address for you on the blog so if you monitor yr comment pls take notice of this one. You simply have to write about this loony tunes editorial in the WSJ which accuses Pelosi of violating the Logan Act & recommends she be prosecuted for a federal felony for her Syria trip.

This editorial simply begs to be skewered & lambasted fr. here till kingdom come. I've linked to the editorial via this comment.

Threats and violence are never to be condoned. They should be prosecuted.

Anonymous free speech is ugly. But it also was fundamental in the founding of this country, and in allowing people to "speak truth to power."

Anonymous free speech allows truth to power, it allows critiques, and yes, it also allows people to bush buttons.

Anonymous free speech allows people in the Sadly, No! threads to make fun of fat people, and it allows people in the TBogg threads to make fun of Coulter and Malkin.

Anonymous free speech allows people at Pandagon and Feministing and Feministe to make fun of the small dicked, misogynistic losers wife beating rapists that come by on a daily basis.

Anonymous free speech is ugly and it allows people of all races, creeds, colors, religions, age, gender, gender preference, national origin, disability or veteran status to attack people they don't like.

Anonymous free speech should be defended, and not critiqued because certain protected classes do not like it.

In other news, in Scottsdale Arizona, posters can no longer be posted on street corners.

A related problem is one of prevalence. Practically everyone who posts online gets insulted from time to time, but women tend to get more heat more quickly. It's easy to see it when the insults are crass and obviously sexual, less so when it's just a matter of frequency.

That said, I don't think that site moderators are nearly proactive enough about removing misogynistic hate mail. In some cases, this is probably "traffic whoring," (with my apologies to actual working girls). In others, it feeds a sense of grievance (See, see! My political opponents are sexist!), that is also common all across the political spectrum.

I have managed on a few occasions to get the ire redirected at me, rather than the woman who was the original target. This smacks of "gallantry" and is not always appreciated by the woman involved, and I accept the criticism and the risk. Still, assholes are assholes and should be named as such from time to time, so there are some abstract principles at stake here.

Matt, can you get me Jessica's address and birth date? I'd like to send her a fainting couch as a present.

(Not only can they bush buttons, and we do need more bush buttons, but they can push buttons too.)

The most prevalent forms of abuse used on the net are the kinds which would invoke the most condemnation when used in polite society. I think it's derived more from the puerile thrill of getting away with saying something 'naughty' than evidence of any great reserves of mysoginist sentiment bubbling away under the surface, fatboy.

Does this mean we have to stop making fun of Ann Althouse?

As for this being some huge societal problem... well, for women like Jessica Valenti it probably does rate. But she's in the upper .01% of women in terms of power, fame and visibility. I'm not convinced that the average woman online has much to fear from anonymous harrassment. Three or four ugly cases over the last month don't seem to me like a particularly compelling problem by comparison to many other social problems.

Sigh.

Well, it only affects prominent and influential women, and there aren't too many of them. So it doesn't matter, right?

It obviously doesn't affect average women. I myself can't see why this would make an average quiet, submissive woman fearful of becoming assertive and daring to have opinions online, and trying to build a following and make themselves semi-famous and a success with influence over the national debate, like Matt Yglesias and any number of male bloggers have done.

Seriously, wanna know why more women don't blog? Maybe because it's a minority of women who are willing to put up with frequent credible threats of rape from total strangers in exchange for the "privilege" of commenting on current events. Maybe the reason there isn't a female Matt Yglesias is because when she was in Harvard, somebody in her comments section kept posting her room number and how she'd better be careful because it was SO EASY for a bad guy to find out where she lived, and if she kept this up she was going to make someone mad and you know, there are really sick perverts out there who will do terrible things to a pretty girl like her while she thinks she's safe in her bed...(And by the way, if she took that comment to the cops, they would do nothing.)

And of course internet misogyny pales in comparison to world hunger and genocide in Darfur. Frankly, so does the minimum wage, media bias, the AG firings, the War on Christmas, and pretty much 99% of the things bloggers post about. Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it's not important. And if you could keep it in mind the next time you hear "why don't more women have leading political blogs ? I guess it's because girls lack a natural interest in being influential, because they're so nice, they fear the rough-and-tumble conflict that us tough guys on the internet thrive on," that would be great.

Check out overwhelmingly male, hobbyist or enthusiast sites if you want a nonpolitical case. Mainly petty harassment, but enough to discourage women who do participate.

John's right about the stalking and Leonard, please think this through more carefully. When you're threatened, yeah, chances are it's just some loser living in his parents' basement. But you don't *know*. And women are targets of just enough real violence that it's hard to ignore. And you know, Leonard, violence against women *is* a "huge societal problem." What were you thinking? This is just one little facet of it.

Just wanted to comment that Althouse's post about Valenti (cited by Valenti in the linked column) cannot POSSIBLY be "miogynist" since Althouse is, you know, a woman. (Just like MY's comments about Israel cannot possibly be anti-semitic because MY is Jewish.)

Communist-Nazi.

One thousand years of partriarchy, down with objectification, death to extremists! And of course, death threats are bad.

Ayant fait obeisance, we need to calm down, stop muttering under our breaths about how freedom isn't free, and look at this issue with a bit of perspective. If the problem is denigration and abuse of women in general on onlife fora, lefty bloggers should consider how they treat their own betes noires.

MY is remarkably free of vitriol and hyperbole. But look and Brad DeLong's site (which I love and read religiously). Every day he is saying that someone should be removed from their job for criminal incompetence and/or treason, that someone is a pathological liar, that someone is the "stupidest man alive." Frequently he implies that hatred of conservatism has driven him to worship demonic beings from another dimension. Is all of what DeLong says literally true in the form that presents it? Or is he incisively expressing his attitude towards objective reality -- and thus suggesting how reality ought to be interpreted -- by saying things that he could not possibly "mean"? In a specific communicative context, we understand DeLong as presenting a very serious and sober argument about the way the world works, because we understand that when he says "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn" he is enacting a certain level of outrage and shock at Republican politics, rather than attempting to summon eldritch polyhedra to devour the President.

When someone calls someone else a "whore," this is very little different than DeLong's calling some idiot "the stupidest man alive." If pressed, either party might feign to actually believe that the term applies to the target literally. And a sensitive person might be deeply and profoundly -- even irreparably -- hurt by insults like these. But it goes with out saying that in certain speech-communities some insults are normal, whereas in other speech-communities these insults are not interpreted as intended, but rather taken literally, in which case they can appear nonsensical or deeply disturbing, even pathological.

In conclusion, worrying about the literal import of the names that people choose to call each other, and the rhetorical postures that they choose to take, misunderstands the nature of language at a fundamental level. You can fail to communicate where two cultures rub up against one another, but you can't simply decree that an entire linguistic practice is immoral. That simply seems absurd to the people for whom the linguistic practice is a practice.

I wonder if Matt's posting about this topic is in any way a response to the variety of skeezy comments from the "Awaken From Your Dogmatic Slumbers" thread (such as mine).

In conclusion, worrying about the literal import of the names that people choose to call each other, and the rhetorical postures that they choose to take, misunderstands the nature of language at a fundamental level

If you think all insults are equally odious, irrespective of social context, then it's you who fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the use of language.

When someone calls someone else a "whore," this is very little different than DeLong's calling some idiot "the stupidest man alive."

Calling a woman the "stupidest woman alive" would be like calling a man the "stupidest man alive".

Calling a man a "rent boy" or "cocksucker" would be the same thing as calling a woman a "whore."

I think it says a lot about the normalization of misogyny that you think calling a man stupid is the same thing as calling a woman a whore.

When Jane Hamsher calls Kate O'Beirne a bitch and Sandpaper Snatch, that's misogyny.

When Ann Coulter calls John Edwards a faggot, that's misandry.

When Duncan Black calls someone a wanker, that's misandry.

And when Amanda Marcotte says this about the Duke students In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good f**king god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and f**ked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.

111 Responses to “Stuck at the airport again…..”

Further update (1:20 p.m. Friday): Here are two comments that Marcotte appears to have deleted from the original thread. The "In her part of the country" comment had already drawn criticism from readers on the LieStoppers site:

Amanda Marcotte Jan 21st, 2007 at 12:54 pm

Yes, how dare a rape victim act confused and bewildered like she was raped or something.

# Amanda Marcotte Jan 21st, 2007 at 2:03 pm

Natalia, do you know the details of the case? If so, why do you think a women enthusiastically jumped into a sexual situation with men making slavery jokes at her? Furthermore, what is your theory on why she supposedly looooooved having sex with guys holding her facedown on the bathroom floor? There’s no “if” they behaved in a disrespectful manner. We have conclusive evidence that happened.

This is about race and class and gender in every way, and there’s basically no way this woman was going to see justice. In her part of the country, both women and black people are seen as subhuman objects to be used and abused by white men.

That's misandry too.

Myself, I think it vital that we stamp out hate speech on teh Intart00bs.

Let's start at Pandagon. Matt, will you bring the boiling oil?

Uh, oh, here's an interesting take on this issue by Amanda Marcotte, I could be wrong, but she seems to be defending ugly free speech:

The main reason to be a meanie is it’s wildly entertaining

On top of this, I have to admit that I’m more than little perturbed by the argument that atheists are required to refrain from ridicule for fear of running people off. There’s a reason that pretty much everyone who makes this argument is a Christian, and it’s a lot like when right wingers or anti-feminists show up in the comments at liberal blogs and give pseudo-advice about how to win them over, when they know they’re not going to be won over. The ugly, brutal truth is that it’s not so easy as to say that ridicule turns people off and runs them off. The truth is that ridiculing your opposition is a fairly effective recruiting tool for your point of view.

I know, it made me cringe to type it, but it’s a very real fact and we have to face the truth. The entire reason that the right wing in America is so powerful today is because they use ridicule so frequently. The jokes don’t even have to be funny to be effective. Believe you and me, I know a lot of wingnuts and when they mock liberals, it’s often a fairly grim exercise. The entire phenomenon of “I’m not a feminist, but” exists strictly because anti-feminists refuse to argue with feminists so much as make jokes that are often more exercises in grim, unfunny mockery of hairy legs and burning bras. Same with the conservative/liberal divide—the reason that most people have liberal politics and yet so many of them identify as conservatives has little to do with politics and everything to do with the endless stream of burned-out hippie jokes radiating from talk radio and other sources.

You might not be able to change true believers with mockery, but people that are hovering out there undecided get the message loud and clear when they hear ridicule. And that’s why I think a lot of liberal Christians get pissy about mockery. It’s not just the understandable dislike of feeling mocked; it’s also the knowledge that atheists who speak up and mock, say, Southern Baptists, and not just for their hypocrisy but for their piety, well, there’s a chance that young people will hear us and get the idea that religion itself is kind of silly. And I understand their concern, but they’re just going to have to deal with the fact that if there’s one thing atheists don’t care about, it’s your ability to recruit and keep people in your church. And passing off requests to us not to interfere with your ability to keep your church rolls high as arguments that are for our good and the good of the country is dishonest and, frankly, unChristian.

Exactly, Jerry.

The reason women aren't blogging is because of THE WOMEN BLOGGERS.

Idiotic.

Calling someone a wanker is not misandry. Both men and women can wank.

Yes, like the comments that come out on liberal forums when Michelle Malkin is mentioned.

Right-wingers like you only seem to bring up racism/sexism/homophobia, when it's a handy tool to attack liberals. Otherwise, you're all for it.

Michelle Malkin a victim? Please.

Anonymous, I am not making any argument as to why more women aren't blogging. In fact, my bloglines list is about 45% female.

The question here is about online abuse of women, and my point is that we should be vigilant against threats and violence, and equally vigilant in supporting anonymous free speech, including your calling me an idiot.

The other point is that our famous A Tier feminist blogger is a prime time online abuser herself. And it's more than just calling people names, it includes behavior where she won't misleads, lies, changes quotes, changes posts, and refuses to acknowledge her bullshit.

For some reason my last post is being held for Matt. Perhaps it triggered a filter since it included too many links. Perhaps I crossed some other boundary. Matt?

Point noted Bart. Thank you.

I hope it's clear I don't think that any of those quotations are misogyny or misandry, but that calling people names, even ugly names is a practice that knows no boundaries due to color, race, religous, body metabolic index, gender, age, status as vegetarian, marriage, gender preference, college you graduated from, gender identification, or military status.

(Probably true that the military excel in this!)

Enjoy your weekend.

7:01 anonymous:

Congratulations on completing Word Twisting 101! Next week we'll move on to WT 153: Reading Against the Text for Fun and Profit. If you actually believe that When someone calls someone else a "whore," this is very little different than DeLong's calling some idiot "the stupidest man alive" was meant to imply that "whore" and "stupidest man alive" are both epithets that refer to people who smoke pole for money, then you really didn't bother to read what I wrote.

But in another respect you proved my point admirably. I quote:

I think it says a lot about the normalization of misogyny that you think calling a man stupid is the same thing as calling a woman a whore

Did I say anything about "calling a man stupid"? No. What I did refer to is arch-blogger genius Brad DeLong's device of calling people "stupidest man alive." Do you see what happened there? DeLong says "stupidest man alive." But you don't react as though DeLong is maliciously claiming that, out of all the cretins and loonies and degenerately dull people in the world, Luskin (or whomever) is the stupidest of all. You react as though this were merely a way of saying, "this guy is stupid," rather than an extreme and potentially soul-crushing insult. And in fact, I'll bet that you don't even really feel that DeLong is saying anything like "This person is a stupid human being; he suffers from mental incapacity." You probably feel that DeLong is simply expressing (a) how stupid a person's published writings and/or off-the-cuff comments are and (b) how much DeLong dislikes the person for that reason.

Do you see? I'll try to rearticulate it: in different linguistic communities, different insults are interpreted in different ways. Outside of a community, insults that may sound like they convey the sharp outrage of an otherwise good-natured and good-humored person may be understood completely differently. In these cases, a literal reading of the insult garbles it into something deeply and irredeemably offensive. But within the community, it is impossible! to understand what the offended person is talking about, because given the circumstances that called for the rhetorical gesture and the in-group understanding of the gesture, everything seems wholly appropriate. You demonstrated this in the passage above: you immediately preconceived "stupidest man alive" as roughly equivalent to "stupid," and probably have a tacit understanding of "stupid" as accurate description of someone who regularly writes low-quality columns.

Obviously a whore and the stupidest man alive are not the same thing, and I never said the same thing. But interpreted literally, its not clear to me that one of those is clearly a worse thing to be. Interpreted as insults coming from specific semantic communities, all anybody can say is that in some groups calling someone "whore" is much more offensive, vulgar, and inappropriate; in others, calling someone "stupidest man alive" is.

Somehow, Jerry manages to turn Jessica's complaint that misogynist speech gets lauded on the Internet into a free speech issue. Way to add to the conversation, Jerry.

Steve, I am glad you agree that the way to combat ugly free speech is more free speech, not less.

Interpreted as insults coming from specific semantic communities, all anybody can say is that in some groups calling someone "whore" is much more offensive, vulgar, and inappropriate; in others, calling someone "stupidest man alive" is

I think it's implicit that we've been speaking about the US, you stupid Red piece of shit. And in the US, calling a woman a "whore" is worse than calling someone "the stupidest man alive." Welcome to America.

I think it's implicit that we've been speaking about the US, you stupid Red piece of shit.

Oh, those uncivil liberals.

I think there is a difference between denouncing an individual pundit or blogger as a "wanker" or intellectually stunted, or any other epithet that fits, and comments that demonstrate generalized hostility to women, blacks, gays, etc. That's the kind of thing that you do see on right wing sites with some frequency. Alicublog linked to some prize winning stupidity by Ace O' Spades the other day and what jumped out at me was the rank women hatred that permeated the comment section.

I agree that some of the Malkin comments can stray over the line and reflect some degree of intellectual laziness in dealing with Our Lady of the Concentration Camps. Attacks on her gender or race are wrong -- attacks on her for being a hideous human being -- I don't really have a problem with that.

I say this as a middle aged heterosexual male who is not overly sensitive.

Oh, those uncivil liberals

Like that?

A few days ago, Thailand blocked YouTube for slanders against the King. Slashdot is reporting that the Turkish Assembly wants to ban sites that insult Ataturk. We've seen China ban google and other sites.

Amazing how easy it is to convince Americans that we need to ban speech.

Steve, I am glad you agree that the way to combat ugly free speech is more free speech, not less.

Yes; but I'm not sure the way to deal with comments like "I hope someone rapes you, you stupid bitch" is to respond "I hope they don't."

Joan Walsh suggests the way she responds to those emails is to reply with "God bless you, too".

So when men ask what they can do to support women writers dealing with sexist trolls, that's one example. Be a boss who has your female writers' backs. Now that I'm the boss, I don't write back calling my readers assholes anymore. I got this -- vicious, but not explicitly sexist -- response from someone who called himself "Lucifer" after my appearance on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" last week: "YOU ARE A DIRTY SHIT EATING, RECTUM LICKING COMMIE SLIME MAGGOT! (AN ORGANISM FROM KARL MARX'S FECES)." And I just wrote him what has become my standard reply: "God bless you, too." It works better than calling people "asshole," for the record; they never write back.

Your example is ugly speech, but it does not constitute a threat. Why does adult need to be protected from it, and how should they be protected from it?

I think it would be better for all commenters in the forum to make explicit their condemnation of the thug. Ironically, I see that behavior much much more on the low brow, non Harvard, FARK.com than on more liberal, sophisticated websites like this one.

(Hey Matt, the italics at your website are incredibly egregiously miserably craptastic.)

Oh no, Tokyo!

Tokyo Demands YouTube Play Fair

Road to Hell, and all that rot.

Who says anyone needs to be "protected"? You're the one who said free speech shouldn't even be critiqued. Considering neither Matt nor the article he linked said anyone's free speech should be curtailed, it's like you brought up the topic just to pick a fight.

Oh please, the context of Jessica's article is the Kathy Sierra mess in which she threats were made against her. Salon took that and decided to go full bore forum moderation requiring valid emails. The other context is the autoadmit nonsense in which Jill of Feministe and others wanted AutoAdmit to take their fucked up misogynistic hate speech down. The other context is Ann Althouse who said that Jill of Feministe should tough up Nancy, but then Althouse said that Sadly, No! should take her imposters speech down. And Feministe/Feministing and Pandagon all said that Sadly, No! should take their fat abuse speech down. And someone on one of those blogs then said that TBogg's and Atrios' site is filled with vicious misogynistic attacks against Malkin and they should be treated as thugs. And then Althouse said that Franke-Ruta should not bring up the breast blogging controversy and said that Scott Lemiux was being mean to her and Franke-Ruta should make Scott stop that and take his speech down. And then lots of those people banned other people and deleted or modified their posts.

Oh yeah, and Taylor Marsh had a post that was critical of Mormons, so her ISP (two Mormons) edited Taylor Marsh's site and edited her site and demanded she take her speech down.

And along the way Donohue used Amanda's hate speech against Edwards and demanded that Amanda take her speech down.

Then Amanda made some really stupid prejudiced comments against the Duke students and she took her own speech down (and denied it!)

Yeah, none of these people are demanding that speech be protected or taken down.

Oh, so you're worked up over a lot of things besides what's in the actual article. I understand.

There's nothing wrong with asking a site to take down hateful speech, though. They're free to say yes or no, and other people are free to make judgments about them based on that. You can say whatever you want, but you have no God-given entitlement to the use of a particular Internet forum to say it. We might think of this as "defining censorship downwards."

And your position that free speech is so wonderful you shouldn't even CRITIQUE it just blows my mind.

Oh, so you're worked up over a lot of things besides what's in the actual article. I understand.

I guess you actually don't understand it. Though you come to Matt's site, where Matt links together various news events and web posts and insights and tells you how they are all connected, I guess you have not really caught on to that.

It is surprising for you to find out when you read the article by Jessica talking about Jill and Ann that other people might have more understanding of what that was about.

I guess you think that articles all stand and fall on their own, and one article doesn't discuss another and they don't build off or critique each other.

Sorry to have to enlighten you about that. By the way, there is no easter bunny.

I think it is fine to critique speech. So yeah, when you get to the point that all of these people are saying, free speech just sucks, I think that is fine. But that's not what these people are saying. As I said, look at most of these folks and what they are saying is YOUR free speech sucks and it offends me.

And then if you examine how Jill's and Amanda's and Ann (and Alas and ...) and Salon all moderate their comments into oblivion and ban users that offend them all to somehow promote a safe environment where women are not afraid to speak out (even though it's the intart00bs and how hard is it to type in an entry and press "post"), then what you might come to realize is that "create a nice safe environment" means protect our speech and not yours because your speech offends me.

And that is directly related not to threats against Kathy Sierra but to all sorts of calls that have been raised in the past two weeks that we must make speech on hte internet safer from misogyny.

But that is the same as Donohue decrying the hate speech of Pandagon, and the Media and the pundits all talking about the dirty fucking hippy bloggers.

It's all about making sure that YOUR dissent is not heard and my arguments are all that anyone can hear.

And if you've read my posts and think that I am not critiquing people's speech, or think that you are not allowed to then, I don't know how to help you.

Jerry--death threats are not protected speech. And considering the very real violence that many women have to worry about, threats of rape and similar should not be considered protected speech either.

Anonymous free speech should be defended, and not critiqued because certain protected classes do not like it.

And if you've read my posts and think that I am not critiquing people's speech, or think that you are not allowed to then, I don't know how to help you.

Whatever, dude.

In my experience, 99% of the time "free speech" and "censorship" are buzzwords people use to avoid having a real discussion. Instead of trying to defend offensive opinions, people say "stop trying to censor my free speech!" as if it's The Man trying to keep them down.

The government should not restrict free speech. Private shunning and social ostracism, on the other hand, are just fine with me. And if someone wants to say "I don't want that hateful speech on my blog," that's their call, and if people don't like it, they can buy their own printing press quite cheaply from blogspot.com.

If I were running the AutoAdmit website, there's no way I'd want my site to be associated with that kind of filth. The actual people who run that website seem to feel differently. And if people want to say that makes them worse people and that people shouldn't patronize their site on that basis, hey, that's free speech too.

If you think someone's nice safe environment is too sterile for you, then go hang out somewhere else. It's their environment, they can define it however they like.

Jerry--death threats are not protected speech. And considering the very real violence that many women have to worry about, threats of rape and similar should not be considered protected speech either.
Posted by: grumpy realist on April 7, 2007 12:54 AM

Right, I've said that three or four times now. Threats should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Jerry, for a guy talking about free speech being trampled you have yet to show any government action. All you have are certain people setting how they want private communities set up. They have every right to do so just as they have the right to walk away from some crazy person calling them a fucking cunt on the street. Now you, I mean the crazy person, can set up a blog and talk about how unfair it is he doesn't get to go around calling people fucking cunts. And people are free to think you, I mean the crazy person, is an unhinged misogynists. Thats how free speech works.

It's quite a good demonstration, how quickly (even before the thread turned into such a jerryfest) the post racked up comments from a certain set of people claiming that this wasn't such a big problem/ folding it into the wider issue of any kind of "abusive speech" down to calling Al a Stalinist lackey/ moaning that nothing could be done/ insisting that it's just people being naughty, nothing at all to do with misogyny /spewing abstract hyper-intellectualized ivory-tower sociolinguistic musings with no connection to reality/ etc.

In other words, when faced with this wider discussion of blatant and focused misogyny (which can be clearly distinguished from the background noise of internet abuse and random attacks), there is a rush to minimize, deny, give up. It's not an intentional strategy ( I refer to "a set of people" only to emphasize the number of people here - Neil, SCMTim, John Emerson, and the exasperatedly eloquent Anonymous(es?), among others - who clearly get it), but rather a reflection of their own attitudes and priorities - it's truly not a big/obvious issue for them; they can't see it. I strongly doubt any of them wander the internet screeching slurs and rape threats at women, but in a sense they still unintentionally are a reflection of the bigger problem - what anonymous refers to as the 'normalization of misogyny.'

There are two competing maxims here. Leonard warns us to 'not feed the trolls.' However, the more important one is on the necessity of speaking up, taking action. Over at Making Light, Patrick Nielsen Hayden (writing about a post of Amanda's on Overton Window theory) reminds us that " most people don’t like feeling like they’re disconnecting themselves from the majority of their fellow human beings. . . . . for most people, being perceived as an eccentric outlier is something to be feared. This isn’t fundamentally because most people are corrupt, it’s fundamentally because most people are social animals, and feeling connected with the pack is critical to our sense of well-being." David Neiwert has written repeatedly and at length how active bigots - hate crime perpetuators, marching neonazis, and suchlike - imagine and are empowered by the sense that they are acting with the support of the community, indeed are speaking for it. And we've heard a lot lately about authoritarian followers, who are quite unlikely to be violent, except where they feel that the proper authorities have given them license to attack (and hence such action is proper and allowed).

What we have to do is send a very strong message that such behavior is not acceptable, is not approved, is entirely out of line, marginalizes oneself, etc. In this kind of thing, silence can be taken as consent. Exactly how this message is sent will depend on the situation and one's convictions (ie, re: 'censorship,' etc.), but the important thing is that it is sent, consistently and unmistakably.

Funny how I am polite and civil and yet I get called idiotic, and a crazy person, all by people that are upset that women are getting upset when people say nasty things about them.

Dan S. is right, silence to hate speech is consent, and actually banning commenters and deleting comments takes away the ability of other people to make their dissent known to hate speech.

So these are private communities. Have I said that they must have open forums? Nope, I haven't said that at all.

But here is what happens when they don't.

Amanda Marcotte creates herself an echo chamber and she is not called on it by the liberal blogosphere. Amanda Marcotte hears all of her commenters telling her how great she is, and Amanda Marcotte gets the impression that she can curse out Christians AND still become a blogger for a national campaign. Result of echo chamber: Amanda Marcotte sinks Edwards and becomes a big sore point for liberals.

Ann Althouse creates herself an echo chamber and she is not called on it by the conservative blogosphere. Ann Althouse hears only from her commenters how great she is. Ann Althouse gets the impression it is okay to attack young women based on their looks, and curse out young women based on their statements and friends. Ann had help, she had tenure. So Ann becomes an Abuser.

Charles Johnson creates himself an echo chamber. Free Republic creates itself an echo chamber. Red State creates itself an echo chamber. And so we get Iraq for four years. No, five years, no, the forever war.

All of these are private communities that have decided they need to create themselves safe environments and keep out the idiots, and the crazies, and the misogynists.

No one is saying they cannot do this. I am saying it is bad for everyone when they do do this.

I am a proud feminist, I am a proud American, I will promote free speech, even ugly free speech, even in closed private communities that do not have a constitutional burden for it. Why? Because more information is a good thing.

You are now free to call me once again an idiot, crazy, and misogynist as you defend the ability of forums to remove speech that calls people names.

You're "again an idiot, crazy, and misogynist." Thanks!

For those who think that this blog is somehow free of misogyny, just go read the thread on the Alanis Morissette "My Humps" video. One commenter responded with:

"Is this "Let's cravenly suck up to the feminist extremists and maybe they will give us some angry sex" week?

If I want to hear Alanis's caterwauling , I'll go step on my cat's tail. And if I wanted to hear a lazy , narcissistic bitch whine, I would go and read Ann Althouse's blog."

You know, because the only reason to respect feminists is for sex, calling women bitch's to demean them is fine, comparing them to animals is fine, and then making a completely unprovoked attack on a woman who is completely irrelevant in every way is fine, because she is a woman with opinions and so deserving of attack. And this is all spurred by a joke(!) music video.

I would like to give some of the other male commenters on this thread the benefit of the doubt that they simply haven't seen or noticed how ubiquitous this sort of misogyny is, but I'm afraid a fair number might simply not know sexism when they see it.

Jesus, this is a depressing thread.

Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too. Is not. Is too.

Then point your finger. Then get someone to pull on it.

SomeCallMeTim: Hey, guess what? In America, "whore" is not considered an earth-shattering insult. Welcome to the land of the free! Once you've spent some time making friends with real-life Americans (rather than pseudonymous blog commenters), get back to me. That's why this is an issue: there are some groups where calling people "whore" is not considered to be as bad as it is in other groups, and most people wish that all groups used language in the way their own group does.

It's hilarious that you think I'm "Red," because unless you mean "commie," you're pretty far off the mark. But what should I expect from one of the foul-mouthed sycophants whose sole connection to the outside world is shitting on the reasoned considerations of others?

mectersofsparx somehow manages to more or less miss the entire point, hyperfocusing on an academic quibble - rightly or wrongly, the impact of calling someone a whore vs. the stupidest man alive - rather than the actual social reality and context. Anonymous at 7:01 still has it right, even if they didn't quote exactly and convey every last shade of meaning. To belabor the point, calling someone "the stupidest man alive" is disparaging hyperbole; calling a woman a whore is a highly sexualized insult. They're both insults, true, but that's about all they have in common. That the latter might be entirely acceptable in certain online male-dominated speech-communities doesn't make it ok, it mean's they're wrong, and in this case there should be social pressure applied for them to use language in a more acceptable manner. And of course, the context is that we're talking about widespread and intense cyber-harassment of women, which has no relationship to anything DeLong's doing.

It's quite irritating, this sort of so-smart-one's-being-stupid thing (something I'm fairly prone to myself - at least the second half). This is like the folks who painstakingly pointed out that Ann Coulter didn't actually call Edwards a faggot, and since he isn't, what's the problem, anyway . . . Fuckin' pilpul. (Which, of course, often serves a purpose, intentionally or not - at least to try to argue that the invisible-to-them problem doesn't exist).

(. . . what else do people mean by capital-R Red?)

Dan S. -- one capital-R Red almost always does mean communist. Being called out as a radical in a thread about misogynist language would somehow be even funnier: tres 1947. I assumed he meant red-as-in-"red state."

Harassment of women is something that needs to be fought, but again, you miss the point when you confuse the *real problem* of the harassment of women with the *spectral problem* that arises when people who are habituated to different standards of speech interact and offend one another with a normal level of vitriol. Obviously you are right -- "whore" is sexualized, "stupidest man alive" is not. There I was just trying to point out that words take on a figurative meaning and are not cruel simpliciter in virute of certain "true meanings." A better example would be "wanker," which many British-inflected blogs use to insult right-wingers. Is this sexualized? Obviously, by definition. Is it highly sexualized? I would say not -- that is, I do not understand these bloggers to intend it in a demeaningly sexual way. They just mean "jerk". In other situations, though, "wanker" is used as an insult of a person's sexuality and social status in just the same way "whore" can be. (Of course, "jerk" was originally used the same way. One of my relatives, an otherwise reasonable dude, gets absolutely livid when told that he is "being a jerk," for precisely this reason. And my mother still thinks that saying that something or someone "sucks" has an implied "cock" on the end, and is suitably offended by people who talk that way. These views are wildly out of the mainstream of American culture, but there are still millions of people who feel this way.)

Dan S. rocks.

A person blogging with a feminine handle is 25 times more likely to be flamed than someone blogging with a masculine handle.

TWENTY-FIVE times more likely to be attacked.

All this nonsense suggesting that it's the same thing to call someone stupid as it is to call them a whore is part of the reason why.

" I assumed he meant red-as-in-"red state."
Huh. Didn't even think of that. It was all a bit odd.

re: wanker, jerk, sucks - and don't forget "putz"! But

"you miss the point when you confuse the *real problem* of the harassment of women with the *spectral problem* that arises when people who are habituated to different standards of speech interact and offend one another with a normal level of vitriol."

- rather, I think you're missing the point here, in that they are the same problem, in the way that, for example, Imus' recent comment (about "nappy headed hos") can't be divided in such a fashion (although that one's a twofer). And this very much isn't a case of someone randomly calling someone else, for example, a bitch without any real awareness of how it might be taken. Have you, um, read Valenti's article, and/or other related discussions?

"Dan S. rocks."

*bows* (blushing slightly)

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?

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.

Isn't it a bit circular to go to chat lines with names like #teen and #allnightcafe and then to state your astonishment that people trying to have computer sex? Isn't it completely bogus to state that contact is harassment?

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir.

Sexist comments about right wing women are regularly the subject of criticism by other members of leftist blogs. Regularly. Every time I see it I criticize and I know plenty of other people do too.

I cannot recall hearing about the latest blogwar erupting on the right side of blog world over too much racism/homophobia/sexism directed at left wing women.

mirc
mirç
mırc
mırç
mircturk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mirc yukle
mirch
mırch
mirc turk
turk mirc
mırcturk
turkmırc
mırc turk
turk mırc
turkiyemirc
türkiyemirc
turkiye mirc
türkiye mirc
mircturkiye
mirctürkiye
mirc turkiye
mircturk
turkmırc
muhabbet
forum
forum
turkforum
turkiyeforum
mirc
turkmirc
toplist
site ekle
pagerank
turkmirc
turkforum
sohbet
chat
sohbet odaları
bedava sohbet
bedava chat
türk
karar

penis büyütücü

Dış Cephe
Fibercement
Hekimboard
Turksiding
İzokon
Dış Cephe Kaplama
Mantolama
Söve
Kaplama
Dışcephe
Dışcephe
Dışcephe

www.sexshopum.com
www.harbiarkadas.com
www.harbiarkadas.net
www.harbiarkadas.org
www.itirafet.org
www.ebedava.net
www.elektronikmarket.net
www.ameribress.com
www.clitoriacream.net
www.superspenisbuyutucu.com
www.megabress.com
www.rednightperformans.com
www.performansartirici.com
www.penisplus.tv
www.penispluspenisbuyutucu.com
www.penispluspenisbuyutucu.net
www.cinselmerkez.com
www.aseks.net
www.erotikcamasirlar.com
www.vajinatr.com
www.bakirevajina.com
www.cinselkozmetik.com
www.kozmetikmedikel.com
www.eturknet.com
www.tecavuz.net
www.yutuvideo.com
www.ponotubesex.com
www.laraperuk.com
www.sackanagimerkezi.com
www.peruksa.com
www.perukmarket.com
www.aseks.com
www.aloveshop.com
www.erotikgiyim.com
www.www.geciktiricispreyler.com
www.geciktiricihap.com
www.geciktiriciler.com
www.azdirici.com
www.bayanuyarici.com
www.fntazialemi.com
www.fantaziservisi.om
www.cinselmazemeler.com
www.cinselfantaziurunleri.com
www.erotikdakikalar.com
www.erotikmarketiniz.com
www.seksmarketiniz.com
www.sekshatlari.com
www.erotikdergiler.com
www.erotikderginiz.com
www.penisbuyutucuviprx.com
www.penisbuyutucuvigrx.com
www.penisbuyutuculer.com
www.vigrxpenisbuyutucu.com
www.sismebebekler.com
www.sismebebekshop.com
www.yemekeviniz.com
www.sanalmarketiniz.com
www.elektronikmarket.net
www.ebedava.net
www.kontortr.com
www.elaydin23.com
www.turkcellkontorcu.com
www.aveakontoral.com
www.vodafonekontoral.com
www.toptankontorcu.com
www.cinselkozmetik.com
www.bayanpartnerler.com
www.erkekpartnerler.com
www.kizarkadaslar.com
www.yonjaarkadas.com
www.siberalem-siberalem.com
www.sexpartnerler.com
www.sekspartnerler.com
www.erotikpartnerler.com
www.gencyuz.com
www.erkekarkadaslar.com
www.bayanarkadaslar.com
www.yemekeviniz.com
www.sanalmarketiniz.com
www.baskahaber.com
www.medikalkozmetik.net
www.kozmetikmedikal.com
www.zayiflamavediyet.net
www.zayiflamahapii.com
www.zayiflamabandii.com
www.kilovertr.com
www.zayiflamatr.net
www.diyettr.com
www.toksinbandi.net
www.botoxtr.com
www.botokstr.com
www.selulittedavii.com
www.selulitgiderici.net
www.selulitkremii.com
www.catlaktedavisii.com
www.catlakgiderici.net
www.catlakkremii.com
www.aseks.com
www.erotikgiyim.com
www.aloveshop.com
www.sismebebekshop.com

penis büyütücü

Thanks Best Regards
mirc
mırc
mırç
mircturk
mirctürk
turkmirc
mirc indir
mırc indir
mirç indir
mirc yükle
mırc yükle
mirc yukle
mırc yukle
mirch
mırch
turk mirc
mircada
muhabbet
mirc sohbet
mırc sohbet
mirc chat
mırc chat
mırc ındır
mirc ındır
türkçe mirc
turkce mirc
turkçe mırc
turkce mırc
oper mirc
irc forum
Mirc forum
irc forum

thanks you

thank you

thank you

Good comment.Thanks admin.

thanks for all