I didn't know the hate was SO bad

[laurawriter]

Did everybody know about this?
I recently started a website for women (I don't know if I'm allowed to say what it is because of the advertising rules thing - am I allowed to say?) But basically it's a site where women can share very mundane, everyday instances of niggling sexism like being shouted at in the street or called 'babe' in the office etc etc. The idea was simply to give women a safe space to feel catharsis and talk about something that had been sexist and upsetting but which may well have been brushed off elsewhere or which they might not have been able to raise elsewhere because of the old 'overreacting' myth.

It doesn't mention men, isn't even overtly 'feminist' - so I've been completely blown away by the vitriol and hatred I've received for the past 3 days. Overnight, everynight, trolls post around 300 comments to the site (fortunately after the first horrible wave I've now managed to turn on moderation so at least only I can see them but still have to read them all to get to the genuine posts). Many of them are explicit descriptions of sexual assault, physical abuse and domestic violence. Many others use my name and 'pretend' to be me saying horrific things about myself. And several contain very explicit threats towards me, many including rape and some mentioning death.

I just wondered - is this normal? Is this a thing that people know about? I feel so horribly naive because I knew sexism was a problem but I had no idea there was such violent, blind hatred with no real reason or thought behind it just against women and their audacity in daring to speak out for themselves.

Sorry for the long post, I just wondered what people's thoughts were - I'm feeling pretty shaken up and don't know whether I should just be accepting this as 'normal' and par for the course with what I'm doing. I thought I was fine and being so strong the first day but then I woke up in the night terrified people were in my garden. Silly really!

I thought I had answered Basil. Do you want me to try again, or will that just detract from Laura's issues (which I tried to help with in my first post)? Because I don't want to do that.

thanks for helping sanjeev.

The only extremism I see on MN, Garlic, is from the trolls that occasionally visit. If you're referring to other members of FWR as "extreme", please stop. It discredits us.

Extreme is sometimes right. If you're in Saudi and you think women should be allowed to drive or vote you might be "extreme" but you might be morally right. Extreme isn't always bad. If you're with a group of people who want all the opposite sex dead that might be extreme and morally wrong.

As fo posting I really really do think that we must as women guard feredom of speech to the death. I am very very unhappy about many recent laws which can see people jailed for tweets. Talk and speech should be free. Of course a site or blog can remove or moderate any post it wishes but we must ensure people can write what they like even if it's awful to women, blacks, men or whatever. That freedom of expression will be taken from us unless we let it be expressed. I would like us all to feel we would die to support the right of men to say women are too thick to be surgeons or to deny the holocaust even though I abhor and would disagree with those views.

I have never had abuse online that I couldn't handle. We also need to ensure we bring up girls who are tough and strong and know that sticks and stones can hurt their bones but words will never hurt them. We need strength and robustness and I am not sure all little girls are being brought up with that. We need to toughen them up somehow, remove the pink and girl stuff and make them strong internally and externally.

That does not mean that I in any way condone abusive comments by men or women on line or anywhere but I do think there is a huge difference between liberatrian feminists and those who want things to be banned all the time.

Sorry folks Sanjeeves right,
Face value is all there is to my posts, I'm a very dull, long term SAHM.
I have been and never will be politically active.
All I wish is that my two DDs grow up in a world where they are treated with respect and equality.

Not a world where the two extremes shout at each other and the rest of us switch off and get on with our lives.

We owe the brave pioneers of feminism more than that, we owe our children more than that.

To preach moderation doesn't mean you condone DV, rape or sexual abuse. To suggest it does would be insulting if it wasn't so silly.

I've tried to suggest a moderate view on this board before and should have known it's a waste of time.

Changing laws isn't radical - really, Nyac? What is, then? Was suffrage not radical?

Trophy, extreme is NOT an insult. I've said that, as have at least 2 others.

Changing laws is a short term fix. The radical solution is complete overthrow of illegitimate male power. Getting us the vote but only within the same male dominated, male created power structure isn't a radical act, although it was an important step along the path to women's rights.

You keep say you're a radical feminist (for some reason). If you are you should be well aware of this.

It may not be in your opinion, Garlic, but when it's used by MRA's to discredit us, we don't really want the association. What's so extreme about wanting full equality, btw?

Laura: thanks for your site. I love it and am sorry that you've had to deal with so many fuckwits. I think it's best just to ignore them here and don't give them the space to peddle their ignorant views. If there is a silver lining to this it is that women are finally beginning to realise that we don't have it all and personal choice has not and does not bring liberation. This realisation is powerful. Feminism is on the rise [busmile] and this brings out the nutters. But we are stronger, cleverer and, in this at least, have the law on our side.

Extreme is an insult in politics. It implies people who should not be taken seriously and are outwith the normal political process.

Radical feminists address fundamentals of male power in particular men's violence twoards and mistreatment of us. That isn't an extreme act, that's a sensible act.

My use of extreme was not meant to be an insult. I am sorry if it was seen as one.

Startail - I know we all have different views of labels. But IMO your views are not moderate. They always seem to be of the, we should only challenge the more extreme sexism, view.

Xenia, isn't there a legal difference between saying women are to thick to become surgeons and threatening to rape/kill a woman? Freedom of speech certainly applies to the first, but what about the second?

Of course it's used as a weapon by opponents. That is the nature of extremism. No political movement has ever got anywhere without a hardcore of extremists.

Re; radicalism. If changing the power structures of a society isn't radical, the only further action I can see is to shoot all the men or round them up and put them in ghettoes. I'm sure I'm wrong about this but have been unenlightened by quite a bit of curious reading (prompted by being told on here I'm not radical). Anybody wants to fill me in, I'll be grateful. Otherwise, I'll just muddle along in my opinionated-old-lady way.

As opinionated old ladies keep saying: don't take recent gains for granted! Equality laws and financial autonomy for women are under greater threat, now, than they've ever been before. They are young and fragile. If our current rights are hampered, feminism really will need to start shooting ...

Xenia you probably will hate me for agreeing with everyword.

Clearly extreemism means different things in different cultures. I preach moderation here because I believe we need to consolidate feminism's gains and make equality as automatic as breathing.

To my eyes there is nothing extreme in fighting for the right to vote, to gain an education or to have freedom of movement and employment.

Driving in Saudi particularly winds me up because was a rural child, my car has been my freedom since I was 18 and still is.

I have always said that, if I had no DH or DCs that is the campaign I would join.

startail - No there is nothing extreme in any of those things. I actually don't think moderation does bring many gains tbh.

I am a lesbian and I think Peter Tatchell a clear radical and Stonewall also radical, have brought about massive gains by being challenging and not moderate. It is easy to ignore a group of people that are being too moderate imo.

I think it is different with individuals actually. Of course if you want to change individual's views you do it in a different way.

Changing laws isn't changing power structures garlic. It's creating slightly different circumstances within the same power structures.

I suppose my question to you would be why on earth do you think you're a radical? I find it very bemusing. You were even claiming that pointing out a man's sexism was "sexist" to him, which isn't just a non-radical act, it's an anti-feminist one.

Maybe you could expand on what you think radical feminism actually means, because clearly there are some different definitions at work here.

Laura, your site is great. Kudos for starting it.

The scumbags who are targeting you are vile and it saddens me that most of them will be young men. I think some other posters have hit the nail on the head as to why this might be. Where do they go from that position as they get older?

That said, I think that the examples of hate that your contributors are describing are more disturbing. The urge of so many men to belittle/attack/objectify women is a massive problem for women. That a significant minority of the population do not think of women as fully human and wish to point that out to them is a subject that is long overdue a national soul-searching.

No, Nyac. I appreciate your replies but have been here so many times before ... Nobody's ever given me a more explicit definition of 'radical feminism' and neither did my reading yield one. On a forum, it may seem as though we differ on what the 'roots' of a patriarchal structure look like. But I doubt that we really do.

One of the big problems with a written, rapid-fire medium like this is that each reader applies their own individual prism to the words. That's natural, unavoidable and, without the many cues of face-to-face interaction, there's nowt to be done about it. It often leads to lengthy sophistry (might not be the exact term, btw!) fixating on a particular word.

I honestly think it's a waste of time and bandwidth to exchange hundreds of posts about one writer means by a particular word. We are capable of interpreting a writer's posts in the wider context of a discussion and their posting style in general. If unclear, we can propose interpretations until we find one that makes sense to all the participants ... I tend to think it's worth doing that if I know one of the posters is autistic or not English but, otherwise, it's everybody's responsibility to remember they don't own the definition of a word.

Need a coffee break.

One good thing about the internet is it allows people under a cloak of anonymity to set out their views. Sometimes mine are so different or extreme people think I must be a man they just cannot envisage women want money, power, successf, have ambition etc. That does not sit comfortably with some feminist who think those things are something no morally good person might have and instead want to cut down the edifice of success and the like.

Most people men and women however thankfully do share some common ground. Most men in the UK would not want women to lose their legal rights and equality under the law and most want things to be pretty fair at home.

The fact we can see the views people might be thinking gives people ammunition. If you don't know what you're up against you cannot do it down or work against it. So I don't think it's wrong if people express views on line. I don't think we want to change the thread into one about where you draw the line in terms of how free is speech and I am at one extreme. However we probably all agree that someone operating a blog or website can control what is written upon it and others can set up their own sites to express their own views if they choose. Where I do have problems is where like in China this week they have taken down one major site expressing political views. I had problems in Iran on getting on to certain sites.

What we need is very large surveys of male views completely anonymously to obtain male views. If we don't know what the views are then we cannot combat or change them in our sons.

As soon on line as someone descends to personal abuse of another (as they often do of me) then I have always won (and of course I want to win as it's a race and the fittest survive and women yes are allowed to hold that view, to want to be the very best in the UK at what they do - we don't all want to stay home and clean the floors and nurture children believe it or not). Those who end up swearing or writing abuse are basically saying I am rather unintelligent. I cannot express views properly. I am not very successful. I probably have a low IQ and I earn very little.

I do think though we have a role to play as strong women in being robust and delighting in debate. I get fed up with women who are all nice to each other, yes you look gorgeous in this dress, supportive supportive whatever happens. It is nauseating. We should also be anti women when the women are doing silly things like earning very little, giving up careers or subjecting duahgtesr to FMB or whatever the error of their ways is. We are allowed to have views and they do not always have to be the same as other women's. We are people. I spend a lot of time supporting equality for men too, fathers' rights and the like as I am sure most feminists do. Things always should be fair to both genders.

"we should also be anti women when the women are doing silly things like earning very little"???

xenia - Of course wome can be ambitious, seek power, etc. But ime on MN other posters disagree with you not because of that, but because of the negative comments you make about other women's choices. Sometimes I think you are right, sometimes wrong - but it is that gets you criticised.

I don't think you can criticise supportive women en masse for supporting one another alone - where I'd be without this thread I don't know! One cannot possibly blame a woman for 'silliness' if she is able to earn very little - it seems to me you are deflecting righteous anger at a system that prejudices employment rights and opportunities away from women onto the women themselves who are often victims of that system.

Laura - great site. Congratulations on launching it and comiserations that it's been so badly targetted by arseholes.

I think everyday sexism is a hugely important part of women's liberation. The more the little things are tolerated, the less awful the big things seem. They're all on the same spectrum and minimising one end serves only to minimise the other end as well. If we could really eradicate sexism in this country we'd see a lot more condemnation of things like FGM in other countries and some positive action against them.

I think what you're doing is hugely important. Good for you!