"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 received a PM on facebook once - it was a threat of violence and sexual assult - the most shocking thing about it was it was from a woman.

Agent Zigzag you might be taken more seriously if you used the internet to do a bit of basic research. Eleanor Rathbone was a 20th century feminist. As any fule kno.

So that one comment at the end negates the fact that she has had all those terrible threats against her?

No, of course it doesn't. But it does muddy the waters of a discussion if you say that only women are victims of what you are discussing when that is blatantly untrue.

You can't say 'hey, what do you reckon to this article?' then moan that people go correcting something in the article which is wrong instead of focussing on the bit of the article that you want to discuss. If you want to discuss that, find a better article. There were a couple linked to further down the thread which would have made a much better OP.

My thoughts re MNP's views:

A) Everyone who posts online gets abuse

True

B) 'The author is an attention seeking militant'

By writing that article she is seeking attention by definition, and I do think she over-egged the "we're all women together so support me because I was attacked for my opinions" bit. I didnt get out of that article if she had opinions worth defending or not. Dunno if I'd call her a militant though.

C) 'she invites criticism by her inflammatory blogs and tweets'

A strong opinion is always inflammatory to someone else on the 'Net. Its a given. TBH after that article I didnt come away thinking "I must seek out more of her opinions"

D) 'if its a man the old 'paedo' line tends to get thrown instead.'

Anything that is a perceived weakness will get thrown at a person by a sufficiently upset opponent. Just look at any emotional MN discussion and wht gets chucked around, and MN is quite mild by Internet standards..

E) 'Not convinced its a feminist issue'

I don't think its just a feminist issue, all opinionated people have been criticized for having opinions, for aeons. Ain't going to stop anytime soon.

F) If you put yourself into the public eye, you will receive very mixed comments

True

G) It's only words on a screen

True, but they do hurt and potentilly incite so I think one does need to go to the relevant authorities if there is a legal issue.

H)' But it is not just women who get nasty comments'

True

F) Again. 'It is not a "feminist" issue.'

Again - true.

I) 'she definitely tailors things and makes it all about being female.'

In that article, IMO, yes. Don't know about her other stuff.

J) 'Abuse on the internet by trolls is not worse for women, confined to women, or thrown at women by men because they are women'

I think that is true, Trolls have been a feature of the internet since the 1990's and the alt.net.

I am REALLY puzzled by the "x group is hurt/killed more than y" arguement.

Why does it make it better or more serious ? Or rather why does it make the perceived minority group any less worthy of our support?

To me bigotry,& hatred is wrong against any group & if ONE person dies or is raped it's too many. End of.

Yes you can say if you don't like reading about this sort of thing turn off, I often do. But by allowing abuse & threatening behaviour like this to become easily accessible makes it acceptable to those groups. (often very young impressionable youngsters too)

It's a pervasive lowering & normalising of attitudes that are NOT acceptable in a just society. There will always be bigotry & misogyny but by allowing this to be pushed aside as just an unpopular journalists viewpoint is dangerous.

The OP posted it here to open the debate to a wider audience & it has proved it is a talking point.

'New Statesman blogger David Allen Green told me: "In three years of blogging and tweeting about highly controversial political topics I have never once has any of the gender-based abuse that, say, Cath Elliott, Penny Red, or Ellie Gellard routinely receive."

From this article.

The OP saw an article and posted a link to it. I suggested they might want to repost it here to reach more people. Although I'm sure many of you would have found it to comment on anyway.

Women face sexual abuse and harassment for being women.

My reponses to your thoughts.

A) - J)

Internet abuse is a fact of life. But not everyone gets detailed descriptions of how the person is going to rape them. And end up self censoring to avoid attracting the attention of these people. That's mainly women.

I think it's really depressing that members of the human race resort to such vile abuse because someone gives an opinion they don't agree with. If people don't talk about it then how can it change? Why should it be expected that you get rape threats online and then be able to brush them off especially because to me, the mindset of someone who'd write those things isn't normal.

Why should the author have to consider the abuse every other group gets in order for her point to be valid seeing as though she was writing an opinion piece about her experience?

Women face sexual abuse and harassment for being women.

Yes of course they do. Not all of them and not from the majority of people, but they do and it is wrong.

Black people face racial abuse and harrassment for being black.
Christian people face religious abuse and harrassment for being Christians
LGBT people face abuse and harrassment for being LGBT

Yes of course they do. Not all of them and not from the majority of people, but they do and it is wrong.

All abuse and harrassment is wrong. There is not a league table of "wrongness". It is ALL wrong.

Abusers will pick a percieved weakness or difference and use that to form the basis of thier comments. That's how abuse works.

YY Catgirl. That's how I see it too. I thought feminism was supposed to be about the rights of everybody...

The difference is that abuse against someone because they are black, christian or LGBT is classed as a hate crime. Abuse against someone because they are a woman is not.

I think? Feel free to correct me if that's wrong?

It is acceptable to abuse a woman on the street to do with her being female, in a way that generally it is not acceptable to abuse black people or gay people (although of course it still happens). And of course the second two are hate crimes, whereas the first is generally seen as "a bit of a laugh".

And end up self censoring to avoid attracting the attention of these people.

This article here is horrifying. It is about how scientists who research ME and claim that it might have a psychological component are the victims of a hate mail campaign, death threats etc. One male scientist who was targeted had a woman turn up to a lecture carrying a knife. He has now changed his research to Gulf War Syndrome instead.

I'm not sure that you could argue that a threat of rape to a female blogger is more serious than the threats that he received, especially when they appear to have been more likely to be realised.

IMO the seriousness of the threat is determined by how real it is likely to be.

Please note that I am not disagreeing that women get more sexual threats than men.

Where is the evidence that threats made against women are more serious?

And where is the evidence that women are more likely to self-censor in a response to hate mail than other groups?

Does it need a label of 'hate crime' for something to be done? No, a label of 'crime' will do just as well. Break the law and there are consequences.

Are you saying that abusing a woman on the street is seen as 'a laugh'? Perhaps so, but only by the same sort of people who would see abusing a black person or a gay person as 'a laugh' also.

Most people do not behave this way, they have some sort of personal code of decency. The ones who do not will not make a distinction between the 'groups', they will attack where they want to and need to be stopped.

Gender related crime is classed as hate crime.

And it isn't acceptable to abuse women in the street

Sorry to correct you Sardine Queen but it is the same and its classed the same.

For example

That is good that gender based abuse is a hate crime.

Lying it makes a difference as it is in a different category for the police.

I think that minor sexual assault of young women, a certain level of harrassment and abuse are seen as "normal" and something that women should laugh off, yes.

SardineQueen... Will they not act on it though? Are you saying that they will respond for 'hate crime' and won't treat other crime in the same way?

Lying the point with hate crimes was that they were put in to get the police to recognise certain crimes against certain groups of people that they were not understanding fully before.

I think if a 15 year old girl walks into a police station and says someone has just said something sexually intimidating to her they won't take is as seriously as if a 15 year old black girl goes in and says someone has just said something racist with intimidating overtones, no.

I would be very pleased if they did!

I don't think that most 15yo girls report the sexually intimidating things that are said to them though. I don't know how much racist abuse gets reported - probably not that much either TBH. People don't think the police are interested unless it's "serious". I would the girl with the racist stuff would have more joy with the police than the other girl though.

i mean, woman walks in with sheaf of emails fro different people, they.re not going to do anything are they. what can they do?

'Agent Zigzag you might be taken more seriously if you used the internet to do a bit of basic research. Eleanor Rathbone was a 20th century feminist. As any fule kno.'

I've got no idea who Elanor Rathbone is/was, and because this is only an internet forum rather than academic discussion, and I because I was posting about my opionion rather than feminist theory, I couldn't care less whether anyone takes me seriously or not.

Even though it is only an internet forum though, trying to put down a poster by claiming superiority because you know the name of a 20th century feminist is hardly a serious point is it?

SardineQueen... If a woman were to walk in to the police station with a sheaf of e-mails making racist remarks, what would they do? That's my point. If the evidence is there, why wouldn't the police act against a crime, which is against the law.

AgentZigzag... For some, that kind of 'point scoring' is important. What would be the view, I wonder, were a man to have been so patronising?