Study says half of all misogynistic tweets are from women

[grimbletart]

BBC report

//www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36380247

If that research stacks up (if) how depressing is that? It says men needn't tax themselves being misogynistic as there are plenty of handmaidens to do it for them

[FirstShinyRobe]

Depends on how they are defining women, though.

[GlitteryPomPoms]

This really doesn't surprise me at all. Most of the women I know outside of work (I'm an academic so lots of feminists around) are what I would call misogynistic if they were men.

Women's misogynistic attitudes are often minimised (by the women themselves or by society) by being described as 'old fashioned' or 'traditional'. I have real issues with these labels as they not only minimise the offensive and damaging attitudes but actually make them seem rather quaint and lovely.

[BaronessEllaSaturday]

Doesn't surprise me at all after something I saw that came up on my facebook the other day. It was about women wearing ripped jeans or shorts and the comments insulting women for doing it were pretty much 50/50 men and women, the women were using comments such as sluts and that they needed to get some self respect. One idiot (woman) even went as far as to say men couldn't be blamed for ogling as it was only natural to them.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

It happens on here too - not FWR usually but lots of other boards.

Someone on here once said that the most powerfully feminist action you can do is to support other women, and that has stuck with me. I try to do this, but I do think some elements of misogyny get internalised.

[GlitteryPomPoms]

Someone on here once said that the most powerfully feminist action you can do is to support other women

See, I'm always quite confused by this. To me, this implies that we should support other women just because they are women regardless of whether or not we agree with their actions or decisions. I don't really agree with this but I think I might be reading 'support other women' very naively.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

I didn't read 'support' like that, Glitter, and I reserve the right to vote for a Kinnock over a Thatcher. I saw it more as helping other women at work, in social situations - making the sisterhood a reality. Not criticising clothes choices, appearance, decisions to SAHM or WOHM, that sort of thing. and supporting female contestants on Masterchef, go Jane!

[VestalVirgin]

Glittery, I read it as supporting women in getting access to things they need.
Like, if a former forced-birther needs an abortion, I'd help her.
I would not, however, support misogynist statements just because they are coming from a woman - saying misogynist things is not something a woman needs.

Also, a woman who says misogynist things will not be opposed by men, she'll be opposed by other women, so you can pick and choose which women to support.

[Branleuse]

its based on use of the word whore or slut. I highly doubt that 50% of the vile threats such as rape threats
that women get online are by women, even if a lot of women have dodgy internalised misogyny

[VestalVirgin]

I highly doubt that 50% of the vile threats such as rape threats that women get online are by women

There's only so much dirty work that can be outsourced to handmaidens. After all, those misogynist women still have to be convinced it is in their own best interest to do something.
Issuing rape threats to other women wouldn't benefit them in any way.

[GlitteryPomPoms]

EElisavetaOfBelsornia

VestalVirgin

Thanks that makes sense. It was my naive reading. I'm a bad feminist!

[Dervel]

Maybe the take home from this is that the number of men hostile to woman is not as high as previously thought.

[cadno]

Oh dear, Dervel, dangerous talk. You feeling lucky today, punk !

[VestalVirgin]

Maybe the take home from this is that the number of men hostile to woman is not as high as previously thought.

Depends on what you previously thought.

I never thought there were no misogynist women, and also, female misogynists are quite open about their sex, so ...

Also, not all misogynists are on twitter. Someone needs to do the actual work of passing woman-hating laws and stuff. They can't all hang out on twitter all day.

[Felascloak]

This report makes me uncomfortable. I agree with branleuse "its based on use of the word whore or slut. I highly doubt that 50% of the vile threats such as rape threats
that women get online are by women*
I can just hear the cries of "but women do it too!" every time anyone tries to tackle online abuse of women by men now.

[cadno]

I can just hear the cries of "but women do it too!" every time anyone tries to tackle online abuse of women by men now.

Depends on whether your hoping to reduce online abuse of women, or online abuse of women by men only - or shock, horror....online abuse.

[GreenTomatoJam]

Over a three-week period, think tank Demos counted the number of uses of two particular words as indicators of misogyny.


Hmmm.. that's a pretty blunt tool.. there's a fair bit of difference between someone calling someone something, and someone defending someone from being called something - yet they would both use the word.

I think I'd want to see some further analysis of the tweets for instance to see what the context was - denying/accusing etc.

[GreenTomatoJam]

Demos used algorithms to distinguish between tweets being used in explicitly aggressive ways and those that were more conversational in tone.

It seems I spoke too soon, they did do that.

Wow.

[RiverTam]

The fact that the Daily Mail and its sidebar of shame are predominantly read by women says it all, we are conditioned to slag each other off.

[grimbletart]

As we are all exposed to the same societal pressures I wonder what the difference is between, for example, those of us on this board who say "sod that for a game of soldiers" when it comes to misogyny and those who buy into the whole schtick.

[almondpudding]

According to Demos, 70% of racist tweets are from people of the same ethnic group as the slur refers to.

With all these Twitter stats, It is worth remembering that Twitter is representative of the Internet as a whole. Twitter functions well on a Smartphone, so it tends to have a greater skew towards poorer people. Tumblr, home of the social warrior, has poor functionality on phones and so is used more by people with access to a PC. Hence it has high numbers of social justice warriors, who tend to be young, white and wealthy.

[VestalVirgin]

@grimbletart: We are not all exposed to the exact same pressures. There's the influence of parents, for example. It also seems to matter whether you grow up in a big city with an university or in a small countryside village.

It also depends on how selfish someone is. For a selfish woman, opposing feminism might be in her best interest, as the goals of feminism are unlikely to be achieved in one woman's lifetime.

[almondpudding]

Sorry, that should have said Twitter is not representative.

[Terrifiedandregretful]

I'm not surprised by this today. I don't know if anyone here has read the 'foetal gender stereotyping' thread on Aibu. The thread itself is interesting and good natured, but it was linked to on the Facebook page and the responses were just horrible. The op was a 'bitch' and a 'moron' for daring to be annoyed by gender stereotyping, and her annoyance was probably 'caused by her hormones'. The fact that this was all from women really shocked and bothered me.

[Snowshimmer]

That's a lot, and that is sad. However it's Twitter...I wonder how many fake profiles were involved in that percentage. There are men on Twitter posting as women. I don't doubt that there are many misogynist women on there too though.

[PoundingTheStreets]

As we are all exposed to the same societal pressures I wonder what the difference is between, for example, those of us on this board who say "sod that for a game of soldiers" when it comes to misogyny and those who buy into the whole schtick.

I think self-belief and expectations have a lot to do with it. Growing up, for example (child in the 70s) I was subjected to a lot of forced femininity (e.g. my mother insisted on buying me dresses and giving me dolls and telling me that certain behaviours "are not ladylike."). However, I was also allowed access to traditionally male toys/activities and 100% encouraged to believe that I could do any job as good as any man. My education was considered of vital importance and it was expected of me that I would become self supporting.

While I hated the forced femininity, I think it did allow me to grow up feeling that 'female' was just as good as 'male', whereas much of society has fallen into the trap of considering traditionally female activities as somehow lesser or frivolous (e.g. ridiculing men who like knitting).

i did buy into some misogyny/victim-blaming ideals though, and it wasn't until I started to learn more about feminism that I made a conscious effort to see that for what it was and to avoid perpetuating it myself.

Personally, I think feminism should be a compulsory part of the school curriculum, taught as part of a wider focus on politics and sociology.