"A woman's opinion is the miniskirt of the internet"

[HedleyLamarr]

I posted this in Feminism [brave emoticon], and someone has suggested putting it in AIBU.

So, I was sent a link to this article in the Independent. Your thoughts/ideas are much appreciated .

I don't accept that a writer should expect hate speech and the medium in which that hatred is expressed makes no difference. We should not tolerate the intolerable.

I think posters and journalists are well aware of the internet and the potential for hateful remarks, but we should be condemning the hatred and not the writer's decision to publish.

I haven't found any feminist poster to be 'nasty' but then again, I don't expect women to behave better than men, or for feminists to ignore anti-feminist remarks on this site.

I can't read this whole thread, I just can't.

I'm not a fan of the MN feminist section, I find it very directed and directive etc, and I though I broadly feel women are not equal in our world and its structures, I have to say I don't spend much time thinking about feminist issues in my everyday life.

However, threatening women with rape because you don't like their opinions does not equate to calling Jamie Oliver fat, Jeremy Clarkson "middle class" or Chris Evans "ginger" and I don't see why you have to feel that you have signed up to any particular "brand" of social or political ideology to understand this.

I wonder would a man writing about the economy be threatened with castration? Why is a threat of extreme sexual violence as a response to economic journalism not a "feminist issue"? The mind boggles, really. How anyone can think it's okay for anyone to threaten rape as a "criticism", let alone anyone female, just flabberghasts me.

If you had read the whole thread you would have found that no one thought it was okay for anyone to threaten rape as a "criticism", let alone anyone female.

No one equated it to calling Jamie Oliver fat either, but some posters did point out that threats of extreme violence, death and sexual violence were levelled against males and that the problem if these threats was not limited only to women, which LP had asserted was the case in the original article.

Charbon... Not one poster on this thread has said that the violence/rape threats or remarks are acceptable. Not one.

How does that keep getting missed?

Well, a bunfight was not my intention. Had people wished to have a pop at me, then that would've been ok with me. Having a dig at a blogger who's terrified is a bit low, and not something I expected from MN. I certainly didn't expect to see posts along the lines of "well, she has controversial views, so she deserves it" from women!

I rarely venture onto Feminism purely because of their narrow viewpoint. As I say upthread I'm not a feminist. I do want equality, I don't believe that positive discrimination works, we should all be treated equally well. We all, male or female, deserve no less.

It was posted here as some thought it was worth doing so as most posters are not as scared of AIBU as they are of the Feminism topic. You have pointed out the reason why that is. Anyone who strays from their very narrow definition of what feminism is gets destroyed, and that, to me, is wrong.

I do think that on the whole the feminists agree with the OP, that threats to rape are unnacceptable, even over the web. Were it to occur on the street it would be a criminal offence. Why not in cyberspace? Why is that so difficult to process? I know that if it became a criminal offence the trolls would use proxies and onion routers to get around IP logging, but proxies can be traced back.

This is the 5th or 6th time I have explained why this thread is where it is, and it will be the last. You're right, I can post what i like (within reason) where I like. I'm normally unobtrusive and uncontroversial. I've only ever had one post deleted on MN. I rarely start threads, and when I do they usually get ignored, which judging by the tone of some of the replies on here is probably for the best.

HedleyLamarr... Where has anybody on this thread said that threats to rape are acceptable? It's really a moot point, nobody is going to say it is acceptable, are they?

Your posts haven't been vitriolic, some of the posters who followed you out of MN feminists have been, as they always are.

... and for clarification, you don't need to be a feminist to agree with that threats to rape are unacceptable - just a human being.

Hedley fwiw, I don't think you intended to start a bun fight at all and I think your posts have been measured.

But I have to say that I don't think ANYONE said "well, she has controversial views, so she deserves it" at any point.

Also "I'm not a feminist. I do want equality". I think thats what being a feminist is. Not the brand of vitriol that sometimes get spouted on here and called feminism. To be honest, I really think we should re-claim it.

And I do think that on the whole the feminists agree with the OP, that threats to rape are unnacceptable, even over the web. Were it to occur on the street it would be a criminal offence. Why not in cyberspace?

I do think that PEOPLE on the whole agree with the OP that threats to rape are unacceptable. NO ONE has said these threats are acceptable. Saying threatening to rape someone isn't a feminist view point, it's a human one.

And threatening to rape someone IS A CRIME over the internet. It is a criminal offence.

Sorry - pretty much x post with lying

Catgirl, I read five pages. In five pages, the general trend seemed to be "meh, what can you expect, it's the internet?", "men suffer too!" and "she's just looking for publicity".

That seems really weird to me on a predominantly female site, that there would be no empathy with the writer or horror that any woman would endure this type of hate in her daily working life.

Ah Hedley ( can I call you Hedley? ) - sorry you feel you've had a hard time - here ---> for you.

I certainly didn't expect to see posts along the lines of "well, she has controversial views, so she deserves it" from women!

That is misrepresenting the response you got, which was far,far more on the lines of "anyone with controversial views on the Net will get abuse". ie the point being made was that anyone - not just women - who are controversial on the Net will get abusive responses.

The view was not that they deserved it, but that they will get it due to the nature of the medium.

I do think that on the whole the feminists agree with the OP, that threats to rape are unnacceptable, even over the web.

No one has said rape is acceptable, that is completely misrepresenting the argument (classic MN Feminist trick btw). What everyone has patiently pointed out - again and again - is that your perceived differentness will be used against you whether its sex, religion, class, race etc etc.

Were it to occur on the street it would be a criminal offence. Why not in cyberspace? Why is that so difficult to process?

Because you can't police cyberspace. Why is that difficult to process?

So where in those 5 pages did you see people saying it was ok to threaten rape as a criticism? I have re-read the whole thread and that never happened.

In the first few pages, there are a lot of posts saying that it's not a feminist issue, that anyone could have anything levelled at them..

And on the second page, someone challenged this by asking:

"So if someone e-mails a female journalist telling her that her suckhole needs to be stopped with a cock to stop her talking, that's no more evidence of misogyny, than e-mailing a black journalist, telling him that he needs to get back to the cotton field, is evidence of racism then?"

And received this direct response, quoting the above:

How exactly do you have to insult a white man for it to be a form of 'ism'? Jeremy Clarkson is a "middle class"
Richard Hammond is a "short arsed"
Chris Evans is a "ginger haired"

You get the idea...

Or are they immune because they are not a minority group?"

To me, this is equating threats of sexual violence with calling Chris Evan's ginger haired. There is a strong inference in some of those posts that it is no big deal. There is another post, in the same raft, saying that Jamie Oliver probably gets called fat and cockney etc, that this criticism is just pointing out your weakpoint and all part of the cut and thrust of things. Someone asks does the writer know how the internet works, as if she should expect no better. All of these responses trivialise the gravity of using rape in this context.

So perhaps no one directly says "I think it is okay to threaten to rape women as a form of criticism", but there is more to discussion than text, you know: there is subtext, too. And yes, it is more subjective.. but it is part of human social interaction to watch for it, to interpret it, to respond to it. It would be highly disingenous to suggest otherwise.

I suppose it's how you're looking at this. Some posters I think are looking at it from a women's point of view which is how the articles have been written. Some posters are looking at it from a general point of view but feel it's therefore been skewed to be about women because that's what the articles were about.

I don't know and none of us do really if it's worse for women to recieve death and rape threats online than it is for a man as the man's perspective from a range of male bloggers hasn't been published yet. I think that would provide balance.

I don't know who is or isn't a feminist but it appears everyone can give as good as they get on this topic :)

Apologies LyingWitch, I've just checked and I misread a post. My mistake.

If you truly believe that women on this thread believe that it is ok for women to be threatened with rape working you have a very low opinion of women.

You said yourself no one has said this, but you believe that is the sub-text of people disagreeing with the author of the article when she says that white, middle class males can post on the internet without fear of abuse.

I think that's a very big jump to get from

"I disagree that white, middle class males can post on the internet without fear of abuse." to "women being threatend with rape is acceptable".

I didn't say that posters have defended the comments as acceptable.

I do say that several posters have refused to accept that the comments this writer received were examples of hate speech i.e. based on the writer's difference. Whether you are a feminist or not, it is peculiarly myopic to deny that these comments were examples of hate speech.

I do say that some posters have inferred that if writers raise their heads above the parapet and publish controversial articles, they should expect this sort of criticism. This was an early post:

"The thing about this woman is, apart from being a hypocrite and part of the "rent a mob" at any protest going, she invites criticism by her inflammatory blogs and tweets and then milks them by writing her next half dozen or so articles based on the negative comments she has gained."

I am saying that we need to recognise hate speech where it exists and stop inferring that writers "invite it" by the type of articles they publish.

I don't see why it's relevant as to whether it's worse or better for men, it is a non-issue.

The threats that are being described are pretty obviously being levelled at a woman, and they have inspired other women writers to share experiences of similar threats of sexual violence. I was particularly horrified by the ones levelled at the writer in the Catholic Voice, as much as I am sure I would probably hate her viewpoints and disagree entirely with her opinions as a bit of an anti-Catholic.

At any point since this came up in the media, male writers could have raised their hands to say "yes, me too, I am regularly threatened with rape and sexual violence" and this would be a different debate and it would be reasonable to say that this was not a women's issue. But this isn't what has happened, so the argument seems a null one and I am not sure why people feel the need to press that it is just as likely that a man could receive these threats. Perhaps that is the case, who knows, but as we don't have reports and evidence about this, why does it take centre stage in the debate when it begins on MN? Why is there such a tremendous need to deny this woman's experience? Ah, she's a pain in the arse. She's militant. She's looking for publicity. Lots of other people get schtick too. It's the Internet.

I honestly am shocked that women don't feel genuine horror that these threats are out there and levelled at women.

I would feel utter horror if I had read they were levelled at men/black people/green aliens too yet if this thread had been about the abuse levelled at green aliens, I wouldn't feel the need to say "but yes, women get this too..". The response is weirdly apologist.

Working9while5...So perhaps no one directly says "I think it is okay to threaten to rape women as a form of criticism", but there is more to discussion than text, you know: there is subtext, too. And yes, it is more subjective.. but it is part of human social interaction to watch for it, to interpret it, to respond to it. It would be highly disingenous to suggest otherwise.

Yes, well I suppose that comes down to the skill of the interpretation or the 'twisting', doesn't it? Politicians do that, they take a statement, add a bit, take a bit away, put a spin on it and in the end it doesn't resemble anything that was said.

As for subtext... well I guess so, if what you needed wasn't there in the original statement and it can't be manipulated in, you can 'read between the lines', after all, there's nothing there so it could be anything?

I dislike that 'disingenuous' word. It's used an awful lot and doesn't mean a hill of beans. If you disbelieve something that someone says, why not just say so, out in the open and honest? Ask for clarification of what somebody means if you don't understand? Too easy? Much more fun to misinterpret and apply your own demons/logic/hangover (delete as appropriate).

I really wonder if that's why men seemingly rule the world... they don't get caught up in the pointless catfights?

RyCooler, you may call me that, and thanks for the tea. I don't feel hard done by, I actually expected a rougher ride than I've had.

And thank you Catgirl, I am actually a pacifist. I don't mind an argument, just don't want a scrap.

HedleyLamarr... Welcome to AIBU... home of the bunfight and and but also

Interesting interpretation of my posts there!

Catgirl, I don't have a low or a high opinion of "women", that's a ridiculous notion. Women are 50% of the population, I don't have any opinion of "women" at all because if I did I would be generalising and stereotyping on the basis of gender. You read no subtext in directly comparing "abuse" of someone as "short-arsed" or "ginger-haired" with a sexually explicit violent threat? Those are direct equivalents, from your point of view? You would be just as upset if someone sent you an email calling you a short-arse, middle-classed ginger as if they sent you a graphic depiction of what sexual violence they would do to you?

LyingWitchintheWardrobe, "disingenous" means not candid, insincere etc. It does what it says on the tin. I don't know why you are suggesting a different choice of vocabulary. There are pages and pages of this thread in which people basically doubt and twist the meaning of what the original author wrote, but yes, I suppose they are just being candid and straightforward whereas I am hoping to "twist" things. Being a woman and all, I can't help myself, unlike "men", who should rule us after all as they are SO straight down the line . All of them alike.

I am actually a pacifist. I don't mind an argument, just don't want a scrap

Think of AIBU like riding on a blazing saddle :o

I don't see why it's relevant as to whether it's worse or better for men, it is a non-issue.

It is relevant because the author of the article was claiming that she got abuse because she was a woman posting opinions on the internet, whilst white, middle class males could post opinions on the internet and not recieve abuse.

This was her point, she raised the "non-issue" you descibe and her point was factually incorrect.

Several people noticed that this point was entirely false and corrected it.

No one "denied her experience" as you put it, but they did deny that the point she made above was untrue.