"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 .

Why shouldn't they write about an ongoing problem, is what I should've said

As I said earlier, if someone had written about prostate cancer would people be saying what about breast cancer?

An article about detailed threats of sexual violence sent to women who blog and some posters on here seem determined to first suggest it's just the same as the abuse received by men, then accept that it's different but suggest trolls target 'weaknesses', and any attempt to address this as a separate issue is pointless. And that's ignoring the suggestions that the bloggers bring it on themselves by choosing to be visible and have opinions.

but they haven't been writing about it

But they have. It's just you haven't noticed.

And I've posted before about this being comparable to the abuse directed at footballers by opposition fans in the 1980s. All players got abuse but black players got abuse specific to their race.

Funnily enough, the FA didn't decide it was pointless to specifically address that racist abuse. The Kick It Out Campaign has been a huge success and actually led to a reduction in all abuse directed at players, black or otherwise.

Great link WidowWadman!

good analogyMNP

Puffin, the difference between racism at football matches and abuse on the internet is that the perpetrator is there to be prosecuted.

No I haven't noticed any on the news sites I read. Do you have any links please? I would have missed it if they were on blogs that weren't comic related

This is a bit of an odd thread. Someone posts an article about how women are being intimidated on the internet by men issuing rape threats and instead of examining why some men would behave like that it turns into a massive fight about how it's just as bad for men and what can women expect if they post opinions online anyway.

The problem here isn't Laurie Penny, it's the men who think it's OK to send the most vicious brutal rape threats to a woman.

I can't stand her myself, but I've never thought I would send a threat to rape or kill her.

"that's ignoring the suggestions that the bloggers bring it on themselves by choosing to be visible and have opinions"

It pretty much proves her "short skirt of the internet" point though doesn't it.

Wear a short skirt and get raped by a man - "well what could she expect given what's she's wearing?"

Voice an opinion and get rape threats from men - "well what could she expect given what she's saying and where she's saying it?"

I have posted about five million links on this thread to men detailing their hate mail, giyadas.

You think that these are all anonymous posters hiding behind the internet? Some of the abuse the blogger who wrote the article retweeted comes from people who aren't hiding at all. They have Twitter accounts in their own names, with pictures of themselves etc.

noblegiraffe do you think people using the internet are untraceable?

Why have you done that noblegiraffe? What's the point?

thunderbolts Indeed, I think the whole thread, were LP to read it, would be quite satisfying in how far it confirms her "asking for it" assertion.

PP - even if they are traceable, there is no guarantee that they are in the same country as you. What then, for the prosecution?

thunderbolt -what do you mean what's the point of posting details of hate mail on a thread about hate mail? Especially one started with an article saying that straight white men could post on the internet free from fear of abuse.

Puffin, does Twitter not deal with people abusing its service to post threats? (not used it)

twitter.com/#!/Freems67

?@MockTheLeft: Can somebody please urinate on @PennyRed She is small enough afterall #Pigmywarrior #Occupylsx? And ideally her grave !!!!!
1 Nov"

It's not a thread about hate mail, it's a thread about gender specific intimidation of rape threats that are directed at women by certain men, to intimidate them off the internet.

It's like going to a thread about black people getting racist abuse, and saying "but white people get abused too".

"Especially one started with an article saying that straight white men could post on the internet free from fear of abuse."

Her article didn't say that. You've invented it. So no "especially" at all.

I think the real question is here why some men feel so angry that they'd actually threaten to rape or wish rape on a woman whose opinion they disagreed with on the internet.

thunderbolt, I don't think you can dictate what the thread is about and besides, the thread started with an article, and an OP which asked for thoughts and opinions regarding the article.

My thoughts regarded the final paragraph "Free speech means being free to use technology and participate in public life without fear of abuse ? and if the only people who can do so are white, straight men, the internet is not as free as we'd like to believe."

I didn't 'invent it', and I don't believe white straight men are free to use the internet without fear of abuse so I disputed it with evidence.

But this has all been done a million times on this thread already. Have you read it?

"...the difference between racism at football matches and abuse on the internet is that the perpetrator is there to be prosecuted."

So what....?

Tmes have moved on, the way people are on the receiving end of hate crimes has changed. Do we just sit on our laurels and say we have no mechanisms for dealing with it? Or do we need to find new tools?

What happens when the Internet evolves into something else? Do we just let hate crimes go because we then don't have any way of dealing with that?

"Especially one started with an article saying that straight white men could post on the internet free from fear of abuse."

Oh my goodness....!

She never said this, did she?

noble I don't think we're dealing with people with particularly high intellect here. I mean, they think the way to respond to an opinion that differs from theirs is to threaten to rape/attack the opinion holder.

As with rycool's example from FB - the woman who threatened there did it from her own FB account. The convicted killer of Meredith Kurcher was caught because he logged into FB while on the run. Not to say that all the abusers are quite that stupid but I'd wager a fair few are so quick wins in terms of tracing and charging. Easier than being mugged in the street and then having to do a foto fit and the police still catch people that way.

Have you heard of extradition? The criminal laws of one country quite frequently reach across jurisdictions depending on where the harm is judged to have taken place. Commercial law has been speedier to do this otherwise we'd have no IP rights etc in anything created or placed on the internet, but criminal law is catching up depending on jurisdiction.

Ah - not having used twitter could explain why you think ppl are untraceable noble