"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 haven't seen a single person calling for censorship here.

My OCD won't be at all happy if the thread's not resolved by the time it's full up

I'm surprised to think I might miss it when it's gone.

You know what I think is really telling? It's in the OP:

I posted this in Feminism [brave emoticon]

I think it is really a sad a woman would feel that posting something in a feminist section was an act of bravery. That she did hardly suggests it's a welcoming place for women or somewhere they feel safe to express themselves. And that is a real shame. I do think it is only a minority that have created that feeling and I hope it stops.

I am not interested in commenting on other posters behaviour. My post was about me thinking no one had said "feminists are nasty" which was a post addressed to the whole thread and you turned that into another personal reply "thanks for being such a stickler for accuracy catgirl" and asked me personally and specifically a question, which I resposnded to. If WMW had asked me a specific question, I would have responded. I wasn't actually trying to engage with you ona personal / 1 to 1 level.

Also - I am not criticising you Thunder, apart from letting you know that, to me, you come across as hostile and defensive and it is, IMO, making it harder for people to engage with what you are saying. It's not a criticism, its an observation.

Which proposed solutions WMW?

I think this is one of the most lightly moderated boards on the internet

Oh my life!!!!! I can not anyone actually said this!!!!! That's given me a right laugh!

Calling someone hostile and defensive is definitely criticism.

But it's more of the same. What a shame.

Because this is actually an important issue. Men threatening women with rape to shut them up is an absolutely heinous way to behave.

Lots of female bloggers are talking about this. Sadie Doyle of Tiger Beatdown:

tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/11/on-blogging-threats-and-silence/

*VERY DISTURBING CONTENT**

"On Blogging, Threats, and Silence
Content note: This post includes excerpts of threats and abusive language.

I got my first rape threat as a blogger when I was on Blogspot, so new that I still had the default theme up and hadn?t even added anything to the sidebar. I can?t even remember the pseudonym I was using then, and I probably had about 10 hits on a good day, seven of which were me compulsively loading the page just to make sure it still existed, and the other two of which were probably my friends. I wrote a post about some local political issue or another, expressing my misgivings, and a reader kindly took time out of his day to email me.

?You stupid cunt,? he said, ?all you need is a good fucking and then you?d be less uptight.?

I stared at it for a couple of minutes, too shocked to move. There it was on my screen, not going away. Someone really had thought it was appropriate not just to write this email to a complete stranger, a totally unknown person, but to send it. I deleted it, and spent another few minutes staring at the blank hole in my inbox where it had been before shaking it off and moving on.

It was harder with the next one, and the next, and the next, but by the time I?d clocked around 20 threats, and was up to around 30 readers, I?d learned the art of triage. The quick skim to find out if there was any actually personal threatening information, like identifying details, or if it was just your garden variety threat with no teeth behind it. I kept them all in a little file in case I needed them later, and forwarded the worst to the police department, not in the belief they would actually do anything, but in the hopes that information would be there, somewhere, in case it was needed someday.

?I hope you get raped to death with a gorsebush,? one email memorably began. I gave the letter writer some style points for creativity, but quickly deducted them when I noted he?d sent it from his work email, at a progressive organisation. I helpfully forwarded it to his supervisor, since I thought she might be interested to know what he was doing on company time. ?Thanks,? she wrote back, and I didn?t hear anything more about it. Several months later I attended a gala event the organisation was participating in and watched him sitting there on stage, confident and smug."

Worth noting that the last rape threatener was so confident that not only did he make the threat in his own name, he did it at his workplace.

So it's not the anonymity of the internet that makes these men feel they can get away with it.

It's amazing that a man posting rape threats to a woman from work didn't get the sack.

So amazing it makes me wonder if it is actually true.

You don't believe her? Why would she lie?

Not a clue - don't know anything about her. Not saying she would or wouldn't but I do find it unlikely that had she pushed this the perpetrator would not have been fired. Just seems very very unlikely.

Hedley, why did you use the brave emoticon about posting this in the Feminist section. Is it for all the reasons that Catgirl has outlined?

Esepcially as she describes it as a "progressive organisation". I suppose he may have got round it on the grounds he didnt actually threaten her and it was a one off, but even still....I don't believe no action was taken.

Occams razor says that she's telling the truth. You'd have to find a reason for her lying before you could fairly accuse her of it.

It's not than unlikely that a valued male member of staff wouldn't get fired for that kind of behaviour. I've worked in a few places where men have behaved badly towards women, and it's been known about but they kept their jobs. Employers weigh things up. The guy might have got a warning for it or something less serious.

Sorry- I hadn't read the post properly - just you saying a man had made a rape threat from his work e-mail and not been sacked. Re-reading it, he hadn't actually made a rape threat (I am not defending what he did say btw). I agree he probably just got a warning for that and that makes more sense. Had he actually made a rape threat I think he would have been fired.

You mean you don't want to believe that catgirl?

Me too, I don't want to believe it.

But sadly, violence against women as a norm goes unpunished, as do threats of violence.

It is a tiny minority of cases where violence or threats of violence, is punished.

So I have no difficulty whatsoever, in believing that no serious action was taken. Probably just a "quiet word", advising that rape threats are better sent from home computers.

This was Helen Lewis-Hastley's follow up piece in the New Statesman. She quotes Petra Davis:

DISTURBING CONTENT AGAIN:

"I haven't written much for the last year or so (nothing sinister, just busy new day job) but when I was a regular sex blogger, most of my work was pseudonymous, some male, some female, some genderless pseudonyms, and I wrote from a variety of different gender perspectives.

I can state confidently that the abuse and threats, mostly of sexual violence of varying levels of inventiveness and sadism, that I received when writing under a female pseudonym, were misogynist -- it was only when writing as a woman that I was ever threatened that way. The abuse got more intense over time, with some commenters taking a particular interest in finding me on social networking sites and posting details under pieces I'd written.

When I started getting letters at my flat, I reported them to the police, but they advised me to stop writing provocative material. Eventually, I was sent an email directing me to a website advertising my services as a sex worker, with my address on the front page under the legend 'fuck her till she screams, filth whore, rape me all night cut me open', and some images of sexually mutilated women. It was very strange, sitting quietly in front of my screen looking at those images, knowing that the violence done to these other women was intended as a lesson. . ."

www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/rape-threats-abuse-sex-female

If you post strong opinions on the net, you?ll get support from some, debate from others and mindless abuse from others.
It?s an occupational hazard. If you can't take it in your stride, don't post.

I believe if he had made a rape threat he would have been fired. I certainly hope that would have been the case.

He didnt though and I believe he probably got a stern word or a warning for what he did do.

Doesnt mean I think what he did is right, or that he shouldn't have been fired.

I think wishing physical violence on someone is a threat.

No it isn't. Saying "I hope you get raped by a gorse bush" is not a threat. It's vile and its unacceptable but it isn't a threat and wouldn't be treated as such by the police or any other agency.

I am not defending it, but it isn't a theat.

Anyone sending a threat of violence from a work computer would be sacked. I don't believe that story.

So you're not going to address what I've pointed out about WMW is doing at all catgirl. You're just going to continue his/her criticism of me and of particular feminists on Mumsnet whose behaviour you don't like

Do keep to form, Thunders - you are supposed to accuse me of being a man after you accuse me of being a Male Rape apologixt, which you haven't done yet on this thread.

And with Deardgloom's post, we're back to the original point of the OP - women standing up and talking, being the miniskirt of the internet.

If you don't want to get raped, don't wear clothes that might turn a normal man into a rapist/ go into a venue that might turn a normal man into a rapist/ say something that might turn a normal man into a rapist (because apparently it's really easy to suddenly turn normal men into rapists).

If you don't want to get violent abusive threats and be stalked on the internet possibly moving to real life, don't say anything.

That's freedom of speech then.