"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 .

"Men get abuse which includes abuse that is gender specific."

Women don't tend to get called 'faggot' or 'dick' do they?

Have an oinion on the Internet...

Wearing a mini-skirt...

Both are - seemingly - 'asking for it'.

That is the analogy. Noth more complicated than that. And many people's responses here verify that - all the 'well, what did she expects?' back on page 1.

To further clarify, she's not saying 'if you wear a mini-skirt you're likely to get raped'.

She's saying that in some people's minds, if you wear one, you're pretty much asking for it, along the 'what did she expect?' lines.

Do you see the difference?

Without nitpicking any of it, I could sign up to Thunderbolts list as well ( although the two statements used as examples in her previous post are a misinterpretation of the thread, or the problem in general ), and from a personal point of view, it's the '3. However the perpetrators are almost overwhelmingly men (particularly the people issuing rape threats)' which is of most interest to me.

The only way I see of stopping men from using all the rape myths that were described earlier on in the thread, and from 'getting off' on the power they think they can wield over women, is to understand why they're like that.

That unfortunately means putting any emotion about what they do aside and actually talking/listening to them.

Some people might not think they deserve to be talked to, a bit like talking to a terrorist, ie if you want to discuss something then behave nicely and we might talk, but they're the people who are doing something wrong and as a lot of it isn't against the law (or enforcable within reason) how else do you change minds and attitudes?

Well....thanks for the apology - I expect you just hit "post" too soon.

I expect men do get some abuse which is gender specific, although I also expect it is a very small fraction compared to the percentage of abuse which is gender specific that women recieve. I doubt it never happens but I doubt it happens enough to really be an issue or worth arguing about. I can also agree with Squeaky overall without having to agree with every word she says or point she makes.

In terms of your 5 points,

1. I would say Penny is talking about all internet abuse, with a specific focus on the gender specific abuse she has recieved. I disagree this is the only abuse she is writing about, given she mentions racial abuse, LGBT abuse, general insults and death threats, but overall she is talking about violent gender specific abuse. I would say it is not a well written argument and does not really make very cogent points. I have seen much better articles linked to in this thread on the same subject.

1. I would agree men are rarely subjected to this form of abuse

1. I would agree most perpertators of such abuse are male

1. I would agree it needs to stop

1. I would agree it's not necessary to have a conversation about violent misogyny directed at women, and keep saying "but things are bad for men too", but I do feel the only reason the male aspect was mentioned by so many posters was the author herself suggesting that men could post without fear of abuse and that particular point was objected to. Several people have mentioned that to you on many occassions.

I do not think anyone has said anything different at any point during this thread, nor do I think anyone has disagreed with any of your points, except perhaps the absolution of certain statements (eg the difference between "men do not experience" as opposed to "it is rare for men to experience") and perhaps some difference in on whether the article is soley about gender specific abuse or whether it tackles a wider spectrum. These slight differences are hardly the main thrust of the thread however, and everyone does agree that women recieve different abuse to men and that this abuse is wrong. As is all such abuse.

"Well....thanks for the apology - I expect you just hit "post" too soon."

I'm not apologising for that. You were claiming that everybody agreed, so if that's the case then you were definitely agreeing with Squeaky's claims there.

"nor do I think anyone has disagreed with any of your points"

Um you just disagreed with my first point that Penny is talking about violent misogyny. Your response:

"I disagree this is the only abuse she is writing about"

Seriously this is like arguing with treacle.

"We're all agreed" - when we're not

"Nobody has disagreed" - when they have

"That unfortunately means putting any emotion about what they do aside and actually talking/listening to them."

That's interesting AgentZigZag because I've actually seen feminists who have tried this approach. They tried to have reasoned discussions with men who were issuing rape and death threats and were attacking their websites with Denial of Service Attacks.

The result? These men posted child pornography on their sites.

If someone is threatening to rape you and describing how they want to see you tortured do you think it's actually humanly possible to put emotion aside?

You are not going to apologies for mis-representing me and what I have said yet again? Ok - that's your perogative. I think you come across very badly.

I am sorry you don't think there is overall agreement on this thread. I do. I think there are some minor disagreements over interpretation etc but overall everyone agrees that women are wrongly subjected to violent, mysognistic threats on the internet and that this very wrong.

I do not understand why you feel the need to keep on arguing. The thread is about (as you yourself keep on saying) how women recieve such threats and abuse and how wrong it is. Given everyone on here does agree with that, your need to somehow accuse people of defending such abuse when they are not baffles me. Surely the fact that everyone is saying it is wrong and awareness is being raised by the discussion is enough - why the need to create and maintain arguments that just aren't there?

Oh I hope I wasn't arguing catgirl. I posted my five points that we're all agreed on....... then you disagreed.

One persons response isn't evidence of how anyone else would react though thunderbolts, so not reason enough to shut off that particular avenue of solution.

One reason I didn't like the 'rape myths' on the thread above, was that they were put forward as though they are generally accepted justifications for 'why people get raped', and just don't believe this is the case.

Those who aren't rapists themselves, (and if they are, they should be prosecuted and their justifications are likely to need a different type of resolution/challenge) are surely invested in these 'rape myths' in their understanding of the world, and it's these understandings that need changing.

Fuck knows how you'd go about doing this, maybe 'educating' people is the obvious one, but I know one thing for sure, lecturing and setting yourself up in opposition to these people just polarizes the two extremes and gets you on a one way ticket to nowhereville.

If that's the case, and you agree they need to change the way they think and behave, then it goes without saying that the views you hold also need to move closer to a place where a consensus can be hammered out.

I consider myself closer to your point of view (obviously) than to theirs, but even I find you inflexible and a bit unforgiving, getting bogged down with the details of the words rather than the meaning behind them.

Thunders, you seem determined to carve out a subset of the overall internet abuse issue as a special case, i understand thats your area of obsession interest, but this thread has been there, done that in spades.

Why don't you just read the darn thread, there is nothing you are saying that hasn't already been said, and I doubt there is anything you will say that hasn't already been said.

So [yawn] again.

Btw I think it is actually quite rude to not read the thread and just to repeat stuff that was said a long time ago. It's being disrespectful to the original participants.

But that isn't one person's response. These were a group of men who were making these threats and conducting these attacks, not just an individual Agent ZigZag. The women who tried to reason with them made a massive mistake.

We might be talking at cross purposes though. I thought you were talking about trying to talk reasonably to men who make rape threats to women. If you're talking about having a discussion with someone who is repeating rape myths, I don't disagree with that.

But I'd say the right response, if it's possible, to someone who is making violent rape threats is to report them to the police.

What is it that you think I need to forgive?

I"m sorry you're bored Whatmeworry. That part of the discussion is over though. We're all agreed now:

1. What Laurie Penny is talking about is violent misogyny
2. Which men aren't subject to
3. However the perpetrators are almost overwhelmingly men (particularly the people issuing rape threats)
4. This needs to stop
5. It's not necessary to have a conversation about violent misogyny directed at women, and keep saying "but things are bad for men too".

Agent ZigZag and I are now talking about a) how to deal with men who make violent rape threats and b) how to approach people who repeat rape myths.

'Agent ZigZag and I are now talking about...'

Hey, don't bring me in to trying to control the thread and give whatmeworry the finger!

I would say the men who are talking in this way to women on the internet, and the ones who perpetuate the 'rape myths' are one and the same.

Anyone who threatens to rape anyone must have certain thought processes/understandings of the world, to feel that's an appropriate thing to say, even if it is to someone they don't know (which I suspect makes it much easier to say, because they're removed from them in their heads from their wives/mothers/sisters etc who they love and would never treat this way (although I accept that's not always the case)) they're not seeing rape as going over any line, and it's the line that needs shifting.

You can't change anyones mind by force though, you have to give them a better alternative, one that can't be ignored and is rational.

(I'm not saying you are...I'M NOT!! ) But 'inflexible shouty feminist' is an easy person to brush off as extreme.

And by unforgiving I meant harsh rather than you have anything to forgive.

An interesting thing to me as well, is why women (on the whole) don't act in the same way in significant numbers?

Maybe that's how to get into the why, asking why we don't feel compelled to spout such violence at men?

If you feel men are doing it at women because they want to silence them and not divvy up the lions share of power you believe they hold, why aren't 'feminists' redressing the balance to knock men off that top spot?

That is, if feminists believe it works to silence women, why don't they silence men with it?

Or is it that the end don't justify the means?

I would really disagree with that Agent ZigZag. A lot of people can repeat rape myths unthinkingly, you're right in that case it's a matter of education. Making an actual threat of rape is something else entirely. It's an attempt to intimidate and terrorise. It's also someone who has a clear idea what rape actually means which is why he's using it as a threat.

So I think stopping them doing what they do, which is criminal after all even if the laws may not be working quite right at the moment, is what is most important.

Also men who make rape threats having wives/mothers/sisters - well most rapes are committed by men who victims know, so I don't think the assumption that all men love the women in their lives is a correct one either. There are some men who treat the women close to them very cruelly indeed.

"But 'inflexible shouty feminist' is an easy person to brush off as extreme."

Well actually I'd have thought that the person threatening to rape a woman just because he didn't like her opinion or didn't like the fact she dared to voice one was the extremist, but your mileage might vary.

Thunders, in brief:

• The Internet does not "do" violence, it does the "threat of" violence, different things with different treatments under law and different possible solutions.
• the Intenent does do cause and effect, ie you can't will away the effect without also addressing the cause.
• You can't solve 4 for just your subset, 5. You may not be able to solve 4 at all in fact, but you have a better chance if all subsets of the issue are on board.

And if you insist on pushing your 1, 4 and 5 agenda you look like an 'inflexible shouty feminist', which is an easy person to brush off as extreme.

And Thunders, something you probably didn't pick up in your well-considered complete ignoring of the whole thread to date is the issue of the unintended consequences of solving 4 and handing all that censorship power of the Net (which currently is probably the least misogynystic socioeconomic system going) back the The Menz.

Which would of course make you the unwitting Handmaiden of the Patriarchy.

Except now you know.

HTH :)

I don't agree that it's only rapists who repeat rape myths.

Perfectly nice, respectable people who are horrified by the idea of rape, repeat rape myths all the time.

EG "it's all these women who lie, who make it impossible for real victims to get justice"

That's one of the biggest rape myths there is. And it is staggering how many otherwise well informed, well educated people, male and female, believe it.

Whatmeworry, in brief

Your tortured logic is ridiculous and doesn't relate to anything I've actually argued.

HTH. :)

'Well actually I'd have thought that the person threatening to rape a woman just because he didn't like her opinion or didn't like the fact she dared to voice one was the extremist, but your mileage might vary.'

I see feminists/the 'threateners' as opposite extremes on the spectrum of the thread subject.

But making a threat of rape and actually committing a rape both have the same motivation in my mind, and smacks of someone who feels poweless and will get any atom of power and feeling of control where they can get it.

Which is why I put them together.

The law doesn't really touch the people making threats of sexual violence over the internet, its how they think they've got the fucking right to say this crap that is the crux of it.

I did acknowledge that not all men love the women they have contact with in everyday life, but I bet my life on it that most of them do, it's how they abstract the two types of 'women' (ie ones the know and an anonymous woman on the internet) into different sections that allows them to make the threats.

Well yes Eleanor I'd have thought that it would be more accurate to say that the men who make rape threats to women are likely in reasonable number to actually be rapists. That's the group they belong to given that raping women is on their mind. Thought, word, action, etc.

On the other hand, repeating a rape myth, just means that someone has spent too much time around unchallenged misogyny. That's a lot of people.

"I see feminists/the 'threateners' as opposite extremes on the spectrum of the thread subject."

Now that's interesting.

Do you see people who spoke out against slavery and slave owners as at opposite extremes of a spectrum too? Both extremists, both easy to write off?

Or people who challenge homophobic violence?

I think it was noblegiraffe who linked to information about a boy who'd been so homophobically bullied that he committed suicide. Do you think she was as extreme as the bullies for objecting to it?

I think you're using false logic myself AgentZigZag.

'But making a threat of rape and actually committing a rape both have the same motivation in my mind, and smacks of someone who feels poweless and will get any atom of power and feeling of control where they can get it.

Which is why I put them together.'

I actually put people making threats of rape and perpetuators of the 'rape myths' together, and not rapists.

But if you take the last bit out and pretend I wasn't talking about that, it makes sense

But the imbalance in power between men and women isn't even in the same ballpark as between slaves and slave owners.

Now that would be a radical stance if you thought this was the case.

To challenge homophobic violence is a better similarity, because again you can't force someone to change the way they think, even putting them in jail runs the risk of ingraining their views.

Social pressure is the best way IMO, look at all the ways it's changed the way we think...