Donna Zuckerberg: ‘Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence’

[arranfan]

Donna Zuckerberg: ‘Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence’

In the summer of 2015, she noticed an unprecedented level of traffic towards a piece entitled “Why is stoicism having a cultural moment?” and went down a rabbit hole to determine why. The results stunned her: men – or rather, misogynists – were using an armchair enthusiasm for the classics to justify manifestos of hate against women. The results were spreading online under a pseudo-intellectual guise, twisting ancient world philosophy to buttress a contemporary hatred of feminism. And it wasn’t a one-off.
...
But in the case of stoicism’s sudden revival, Zuckerberg found that an active corner of Reddit was applying Hellenistic philosophy to explain the pain and hardship white western men were suffering in the 21st century. Except these men didn’t consider themselves angry – they considered themselves oppressed.

“The ancient world was deeply misogynistic – it was a time when there was no word for rape, feminism did not exist and women’s actions were determined by male relatives,” says Zuckerberg. But now the classical texts are being “distorted and stripped of context” online to lend gravitas to campaigns of misogyny and white supremacy. Not only is it toxic but, as Zuckerberg calmly outlines in her new book, Not All Dead White Men , it is deeply dangerous.

www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/11/donna-zuckerberg-social-media-misoyny-violence-classical-antiquity-not-all-dead-white-men

Pieces of the puzzle are coming together to reveal that a group is using the internet to recruit disaffected men and radicalise them, and to separate men from women and children.

While there is animosity between some factions of the manosphere...the common denominator, she says, remains “the use of ancient literature to represent an aspirational ideal of a world they wish they inhabited. They idealise a model that erases much of the social progress that has been made in the last 2,000 years.”

To me, Zuckerberg has nicely encapsulated much of what's been happening this weekend. From the self-appointed intellectuals who blundered into a discussion of gender despite the fact they had no grounding in it and took 20 tweets to explain it to leading female, feminist scholars

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1061398914916597760

to men self-identifying as the uber-oppressed class.

This is a book that may well be making an appearance in my wish-list.

I'm increasingly convinced that the internet is enemy territory and is used to actually, genuinely radicalise men into becoming more violent and organised in their violence. Whether this is physical or psychological, it creates a feeling in their victims of being under siege.

Whether this is physical or psychological, it creates a feeling in their victims of being under siege.

It's truly appalling yet fascinating! Because it's GC voices and women who are being ousted from FB and Twitter and other social media - not the men issuing death or rape threats.

But if GC voices are excluded from social media - from where is the GC going to come to pop this dangerous thought bubble?

Interesting. Thank you for the links.

(I want to say something intelligent about the distinct refrain of "Forward to the Past" I keep picking up in various narratives, but can't get it to gel. Maybe that's because it doesn't gel. Or maybe it's just I'm just being dim today.)

I really can’t decide if the internet is radicalising men or if men just feel comfortable enough to describe their true feelings. (I strongly suspect the latter)

Sounds like this is Jordan Peterson to a T

distinct refrain of "Forward to the Past"

It does feel like a "Forward to the [DARVO'd or 1984] Past" narrative.

The glorious past that we have interpreted as the intellectual arbiters and inheritors of the mantle of the glorious past when women were denied education and specifically education in the classics.

Was it George Eliot whose father denied her the opportunity to learn Greek so she set up a little bell to wake her early every morning so that she might rise and teach herself?

It's probably a mixture, Hamilton, life is more complex than a couple of sentences I wrote of course. But I do believe these dark impulses are being fed and nurtured through connections made with others online. I read an article the other day about how manga feeds into males' GD and AGP. Manga is definitely something that wasn't as easily available in western societies before the internet.

*Manga has a lot of pornographic, paedophilic content.

Stephen Fry's new book, retelling the ancient myths, seems to be a part of a trend at the moment.

Not read the book myself, has anybody here read it?

Fascinating that Donna has made the unlikely connection between the classics and social media.
If anybody knows the power of social media, a Zuckerberg will.
I might well buy her book, I'll just prepare myself to be shocked.

Stephen Fry is a hideous misogynist.