Mary Beard voiced an opinion...

[AbigailAdams]

... and received vicious misogynistic remarks as a reward.

Just in case anyone was in any doubt that women were targetted, specifically because of their sex. Mary Beard was recently on Question Time. She has experienced a horrible backlash for this. Mainly focussed around her sex and her looks, rather than what she said. Also not just her, her children as well.

Mary's hellish misogynistic internet experience

She is not alone. There really is a special type of wrath and insults saved for women. It is desgined to silence us. And this is really just a continutation on from Beachcomber's thread on women's voices being drowned (and kim's thread on MN and misogyny). It really doesn't matter about the subject matter, women aren't supposed to have opinions. Unless they of course they uphold the patriarchy.

It also raises questions about keeping anonymity, when speaking out. We shouldn't have to but when you are threatened with "we know where you live" type comments, it is easy to see why it is necessary.

I haven't really got a question, other than why should we have to put up with this shit? What can we do about it?

I think Mary did a really good thing in highlighting what happened to her and Louise Mensch involved the police and these are probably the ways to go with dealing with it. But god, it is so exhausting. So I suppose this is just a rant really.

I sincerely hope this thread is not derailed now.
Larry, go report her then. You are being deliberately obtuse as far as I can see and since you have failed to win your point you are stooping to calling victim.

Yet you yourself criticised MB for her background.

I see this as deliberate derailment now. I really do have to go, I hope the other posters can get it back on track and ignore further attempts.

And you were boasting.

LRD,

I am not so resistant to it and clearly, if there were not at heart a level of misogyny, the bullying would not have been framed as it was. I don't think misogyny was the cause but clearly it framed the result. Maybe I am not making myself clear and feel I am being drawn into side alleys which are not really reflecting how I feel.

I guess I am actually shocked by the level of misogyny in some people and maybe, at some level, don't want to believe it. So, that last post was fair and made me question myself.

The separate issue of what should be allowed and whether/how it should be dealt with is maybe more of what I wanted to say and somehow should have been more clear in separating the two.

Yes he is derailing. That's why I said your arguments were irrelevant, larry. Not you, your arguments.

Well, I am glad to hear that clarification, larry.

I do think it's a pity this thread has got so sidetracked, but it's good of you to admit you do realize you'd perhaps got a bit tangled up in a separate point.

This seems to have gone slightly off topic, which is a shame as it is an interesting thread.

I don't see that abuse aimed at Pickles or any other male politician is in any way similar to the abuse that Mary and blogger Cath Elliot received at the hands of that awful website. To name just two of their targets.

IMO, the key issues are

1. Should we view and legally challenge misogynistic abuse in the same way that we would racist or anti-Semitic commens?

1. Should we legally challenge hate crime on Social Media?

1. How to educate the next generation of Social Media users so that they see that a) hate speech and bullying is unacceptable and may lead to prosecution and b) what you post today online may come back and kick your arse in ten years time

Mary
Thank you for commenting on this thread, and for giving women a voice. I hope that your courage will help other women speak out against such abuse.

Btw, no, AA's post isn't a personal attack. I can't see how you'd get to that.

She just disagrees. She thinks you're wrong. That's not an attack and it is ludicrous to compare it to what MB had to put up with.

I really like that idea SGM. Would we have a standard letter that could either be sent as is or elaborated on, or everyone just write their own. With the former we would probably get more people involved but the latter might have a better effect.

Twitter campaigns are always good for this type of stuff.

Took so long to post that, and everyone else has made similar points.

SGM
I like that idea

I would like to be in on this too, please. I'm really sick of CiF - even on a good day you can glance over the comments and feel your blood pressure go through the roof.

Anything remotely related to women on CiF seems to attract the misogynistic comments. It is depressing.

I think CiF would be an excellent place to start.

Ideally all the online publications would be onto this but the Guardian would be a good one first because 1. Ironically it's worse than the others 2. Politically it's meant to be leftwing so it ought to put its money where its mouth is.

A series of blogs on this would work well.

It would be great if it could come from women writers, journalists, academics, bloggers, readers... so that it can't be dismissed as a bunch of mums from MN moaning cause someone got called names.

Cath Elliot might be a good person to approach. And those who were in the article that Rhubs linked to earlier.

Maybe MN could get the CiF Chief Deleter (or whatever his/her job title is) on for a webchat....

Ooh, I would love to see that, tunip. I would be really interested to know how they do it.

"It's the blatant lack of approval-seeking behaviour that so deeply offends men, the flagrant breaching of codes of accepted female behaviour that terrifies women."
Brilliant!
Committing that one to memory.

Brilliant idea, T.

I have been thinking of the education / role model side of this. 18% of Guardian readers are 15 to 24yo.

They read the comments, and learn that while racist remarks are deleted, nasty comments about women are not deleted.

This is not good.

Count me in!

Have we linked to Cristina Odone's spectacular exercise in missing the point, yet?

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100199224/mary-beard-is-clever-so-how-can-she-be-cross-that-question-time-viewers-mocked-her-looks/

I don't think MB was all that bothered about stupid jibes concerning her appearance (which is a fine appearance, IMO!), but she was justifiably angry about the vile woman-hating abuse and threats that came her way...and which she linked to a visible, audible and ever-present nastiness in our world.

Yes tiktok that is pretty lacking in critical thinking (and atrocious journalism).

Here is glosswatch's rebuttal of it

Sanity restored once more

A small point but insults like "bitch" and "slut" are actually important too in that they perpetuate the idea of an acceptable level of misogyny. Places like CiF delete words like "nigger" or "fudge-packer" or other equally disgusting terms relating to protected characteristics but allow misogynistic comments to stand.

Maybe online publications should have a code of conduct? A very simple test of...

1. Does the posting contain a misogynistic word? Yes/No - if yes delete.

2. Does the posting reference a misogynistic act? Yes/No - if yes delete

3. Where you are unsure if a post is offensive, exchange the words relating to women or women's parts or characteristics with an equivalent word relating to race or sexual orientation make it offensive? Yes/No - if yes delete. e.g. You don't know anything you stupid bitch substitute bitch for "nigger" = clearly deletable but you are talking out of your arse, substitute arse for an equivalent word and there isn't one. Arse is not common to one particular protected characteristic so it can stay. Although we'd all agree the poster was rather inarticulate.

Of course censorship and deletions are just fire-fighting - they don't immediately tackle the root cause but they do have an effect over time. Those who have become desensitised to the language become re-sensitised and those who want to be heard have to form an argument or opinion instead of throwing out a cheap insult. It's the pernicious patriarchy that we tackle by eliminating some of the symptoms of it and tackling symptoms is easier than going straight for mind sets and ingrained mis-education.