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 just read this thread Mary, good for you speaking out on this and popping on here to see us....I think most woen have experienced this misogynistic abuse in varying levels, it's good you're standing up to it.

love your progs btw! Hopefully lots more in the pipeline....

Woen - women (one handed typing whilst breastfeeding newborn)

Thanks for adding to this thread, Mary. I am sorry you came in for such vitriol from braindead misogynists. I hope it will not stop you from expressing your opinion as and when you wish.

I hope you found my comments thoughtful and measured Mary.

I was trying to own 'the dark side' but not make excuses for the impulses that wish violence (verbal included) against women.

Lundy Bancroft talks about this, the thinking processes of abusive men. That they really do believe in the marrow of their bones that women should be around to serve them and make them happy, and any information that challenges this will result in viciousness to get 'their' reality back in place.

[And I would be very pleased if you found time to read Thomas Sowell! It is a bit heavy going, full of statistics, but it does challenge the thinking ]

Sorry didn't hear Question Time.
The reason is that I don't want to hear a load of biased MPs spouting the party line. So, much as I like debate progs on TV and Radio, Question Time gets a miss.
Had I known Mary Beard was on it I might have watched.
I love to hear from intellectuals rather than politicians even if I disagree with their view.

My take is that this type of horrendous villification will peter out over the next few years because it will come to the point where we have all heard it before and we won't waste our time reading. If a few nutters can let off steam on these boards, only to be read by a few other nutters, then it will continue but in a meaningless way.

Messageboards when they first started in the mid 90s were a total battlefield. Seething arguments used to erupt daily. Now people know that a meaningless rant is just that and unless you can put yourself over coherently you are largely wasting your time and posts are mostly politer now.

But I do think threats of harm or attack should be taken up by the police. If you were the mother of small children, threats that someone will come round and sort you out or whatever is really not ok. It would terrify me that some nutter might harm me and my children, break in just to scare me, they might even set light to my house. It doesn't bear thinking about. People can be traced and this shouldn't be allowed.

wow Mary Beard IS ON THIS THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!

another to say its disgusting, upsetting

mary, I kind of feel like it could have been my mother that got this abuse (font ttake this as agesist haha, m,y mum is also an academic) and its right pissded me off

As SGM said - thank you for taking a stand. It's brilliant.

Mary, thank you very much for coming on the thread. Just another voice to say how well you have handled this and thank you for speaking out. It was very brave.

I am ashamed at my poor spelling in front of such a distinguished academic

anyway this is a serious topic and I am being all star struck like a muppet

I think that anyone who makes cowardly anonymous threats should have their anonymity pierced and it should be treated as a police matter. Anything that is actually libellous can be dealt with in the courts and Mary has the intellectual and financial ability to make them pay. On the other hand, anyone who, on the internet, makes stupid personal comments of whatever nature, with no implied threat or libel, should just be ignored. The mainstream media, however, even on the internet, should censor their "comments" pages and not allow bile on them, of any nature.

Mary, you are intelligent enough to know what the outer fringes of the internet represent and you do not have to pay them any attention. I do think that, on QT, you came across as speaking from a comfortable Cambridge college set and somewhat de haut en bas. Again, you have to know that this will cause resentment, especially among those who feel that they have been personally affected by issues that you airily dismiss. Unfortunately, the less well educated cannot verbalise their disagreement in academic terms and so attack ad hominem (or should that be "ad feminam"?). It is not right but it is understandable.

Personally I am not on FB or Twitter and I do think these two give a public voice to those who really should not have one. The celeb culture, these days, is a double edged sword. I am not sure what the answer to this but I do think that those who use the "social" media should realise the Faustian pact that they are making.

I think the point about anonymity is a good one. There ARE posters, both men and women, who hide behind their cloak of anonymity to direct personal insults at people that they may well never have said to their face.

Do feminists not used gender based insults to strike out at posters they disagree with? I'm not so sure about that. I have been called a rape apologist on Mumsnet during disagreements with feminists and my role as a mother has been called into question. If these comments are not meant to strike at the very heart of a person then I don't know what is.

That is the thing with debate, if it gets heated then the point is lost and some will take advantage of an anonymous forum to attack the person rather than the point being made.

I did not watch Question Time and will not go back to do so now, therefore I have no idea what points Mary Beard made or if I would agree with them. The reason this thread struck a chord with me is because it did remind me of The Guardian piece about women bloggers being attacked not because of any point they were making, but purely because they had a voice and weren't afraid to use it. They were being threated with rape and were told of all the sexually depraved things the trolls would do to them. Funny how it all boils down to sex sooner or later isn't it? This is why my first post on this thread touched upon porn. I do think there is a correlation between easily accessible hard core pornography and the increase in misogyny that we are seeing now.

It could be argued that there is no real increase, that this abuse has merely come to the forefront because the perpetrators can hide under anonymity and the freedom of speech. Perhaps this is right, however many trolls are not that clever. Mary Beard herself said that she was able to contact a few of them and Twitter has been forced to disclose users identities by the law before now.

If racist and homophobic tweets can result in arrests then so should misogynistic tweets and posts. I'm not talking about people calling women a 'bitch' or a 'slut' I'm talking about the threat of sexual violence. That is hateful and frankly disturbing and until society sends out a very clear message that this will not be tolerated then I fear that a generation of children, growing up with free and easy access to online hard core porn, will find this a very different world to live in.

But that's constantly the message, isn't it? 'You should just ignore them, dear'. Why should she? And why should any of us?

If you want to ignore this stuff, and it's happening to you, then that's your choice. But I think it's perfectly valid to show up this bullying for what it is.

It is, by the way, utter bollocks to claim that the 'less well educated' are incapable of anything except photoshopping faces onto vulvas. Come on. Do you not notice how many MNers have bugger all by way of qualifications and still manage to be perfectly coherent?

FWIW: Faust sold his soul to the devil. What that has to do with social media, I am not certain? Or double-edged swords? It sounds like a very exciting stage play you have in mind, but it's not really an illuminating metaphor.

"If racist and homophobic tweets can result in arrests then so should misogynistic tweets and posts. I'm not talking about people calling women a 'bitch' or a 'slut' I'm talking about the threat of sexual violence. That is hateful and frankly disturbing and until society sends out a very clear message that this will not be tolerated then I fear that a generation of children, growing up with free and easy access to online hard core porn, will find this a very different world to live in. "

This I totally agree with. There needs to be a clear distinction between use of hateful and intolerant language (which I think should be allowed under freedom of speech, or what is the point of it?) and a real threat of sexual violence, which should never be allowed to go unchallenged by the police.

rhubarb - Gail Dines has certainly been saying that for years, and I find her convincing (about pornography/misogyny).

Rhubarb/LRD- yes, me too, convincing but very difficult to prove. So IMO we have to avoid tying our activism to this connection or the whole thing is undermined by opponents saying 'ah well you can't PROVE it therefore everything you are asking for is invalid'.

Larry - trolls often are educated and articulate. It's not confined to a particular section of society.

"FWIW: Faust sold his soul to the devil. What that has to do with social media, I am not certain? Or double-edged swords? It sounds like a very exciting stage play you have in mind, but it's not really an illuminating metaphor."

Well, apologies if it does not work for you but I am not sure you can speak for everyone. Faust traded a moment in the sun for pain for eternity. A double edged sword is one you can both cut with and can cut you. I think both act as metaphors for the "social" media in that they give one an ephemeral feeling of power and connectedness bu ultimately expose one to forces outside one's control.

When I say "less well educated" I am using the word educated in its rounder meaning. Some people have no qualifications but are amazingly well self-educated. Many of the Mnetters you allude to probably fall into that category. Sadly, however, there are many people who cannot construct a coherent argument. I would describe those people (politely) as "less well educated".

Mary, thanks for popping in.

You didn't look dumb. Idealistic perhaps? But that's good.
There are two intersecting issues, wider toleration of misogyny, and how people behave on the internet. The point you made then about how people shouldn't say anything on the internet they wouldn't say to someone's face is still a good one. I'm glad you said that and I have tried and only occasionally failed to change the way I behave online as a result. (Anyway you're never going to look half as dumb as I looked when I posted my unedited gut reaction to the Miss World thing forgetting you were probably going to see the thread.)

Thank you for the way you have taken a stand on this. You were absolutely splendid on the Woman's Hour interview; standing up and saying firmly 'Guys, this has got to stop' was very powerful. Hearing it had been on the news made me feel for the first time like we are really getting somewhere with this.

If we are to argue about what kind of person makes a troll then we are losing the point.

I don't give a monkey's arse who is writing these things, what class they are from, what qualifications they have or where they live. I am concerned only with the content of what they are posting online for the world to see. The internet has become a free publicity tool for all who want it, it allows the most closed-minded and hateful of people to have a public voice, to have a podium and to gain support. And our children are reading all of this.

I see, larry. I think maybe we disagree about what constitutes 'education' and what are merely the trappings of it. But that doesn't matter: the point stands that if someone is capable of photoshopping a face onto a vulva, they are also capable of realizing that is a shitty thing to do. IMHO.

Of course they know it is a shitty thing to do. That is why they do it. As with Rhubarb, I couldn't give a flying fart how educated they are (and nor does it matter). They should just stop doing it!

TheRhubarb,

But what are you saying? Everything you say is entirely true. But other than people who write illegal/libellous posts being prosecuted/sued via losing their anonymity (which I am 100% in favour of), what else would you like to see? There is an important U.S Supreme Court decision (I could try and dig it up if people want me to) which basically says that the right to free speech cannot be reserved for those whose speech is reasonable and people have to be allowed to be vile (basically, they put it far more eloquently!).

The only country which successfully polices the internet (as far as I know) is China and I am not sure we want to go down that road.

AA - exactly.

I think the education thing is a red herring.