Rather shocked that a woman sent these messages

[JacqueslePeacock]

I've just read that two people pleaded guilty to sending threatening, misogynistic messages to Caroline Criado-Perez in protest at her campaign to put a woman on our banknotes. (Guardian article here) I probably shouldn't be shocked, but couldn't help feeling a bit incredulous that one of the two was a young woman.

(It seems the Guardian couldn't quite get its head around it either, as the article refers to the woman's messages as "his" in paragraph 3!)

Blimey some people are rally trying to jump through hops not to name the problem for what it is

I suppose it would let you know if she has been conditioned to hate women, Or has been conditioned to be offensive.

And when being offensive she is misogynistic. It is just too easy, the default to be misogynistic when you are being abusive to women.

I really don't understand why you are trying to disprove that she was being misogynistic?

OP - are you surprised that being an arsehole is not restricted to men?

Can't all abuse to women be construed as misogyny. I think if you are a person that is willing to threaten someone with death, then you will go for the most offensive form of trolling. Maybe society taught her to hate everyone. It surprises me that humans turn on humans, not.

While I find all violence (and threats of it) shocking, I think the shocking thing in this situation is the tweets are sent because a women wants to celebrate women. That is the key difference as I see it.

I think that's it, Hazchem. She wasn't campaigning for a political party or on a religious matter. Her campaign was more important than, but in some ways closer to, Jeremy Clarkson advocating Brunel for that Greatest Briton TV series a few years ago. I don't think he got any death threats or rape threats for that campaign.

"Can't all abuse to women be construed as misogyny." Well when they include abuse about rape and killing them, then yes. Everyone has the capacity to be sexist/misogynistic - it is the nature of the society we live in. It's taught to us from an early age that women are worth less than men.

And I agree with hazchem and Doctrine, with regards why it is more shocking for a woman to throw abuse at CCP.

It seems to take so very little for this abuse to pour in. Mary Beard about a year ago had the same issue after being on Question Time. Lets face it CCP's campaign wasn't exactly radical, just about fair representation - in fact not even fair representation, it was about some representation.

A woman with opinions = rape/death threats
A man with opinions = argue the toss

That's why it's misogynistic and that's why people are shocked. But yes that shock/sadness/disappointment aimed specifically at a woman doing it does have an element of holding women's behaviour to a different standard than men.

I can see why it is important to feminists that this behaviour is identified as misogyny. I think some of the rest of us (well, me!) struggle with why it's important to them in this case, rather than whether this fills the criteria for it or not. But this is how feminists look at the world, and it's pretty apparent that someone wished harm upon a woman.

I can think of instances of similar hate speech on twitter and Facebook aimed at men, but I guess it serves no purpose to bring them up, other than to say if you think they don't exist you are missing a big part of online abuse. These are not a concern of feminism, but nor should it deny that they happen.

"I can think of instances of similar hate speech on twitter and Facebook aimed at men, but I guess it serves no purpose to bring them up, other than to say if you think they don't exist you are missing a big part of online abuse. These are not a concern of feminism, but nor should it deny that they happen." Except no-one has done that.

Interesting that you say that. At 09:04:36 you said;

A woman with opinions = rape/death threats
A man with opinions = argue the toss

That is what I was referring to. That reads to me as though men do not get abuse or threats. Maybe I mis-interpreted.

I'm not sure that abuse on the internet is clear cut. I don't think women expressing an opinion are more abused than men.
I don't think we can no if the abusers thought what they were doing was acceptable or not. The language used could be called misogynistic. I think there is a difference between using misogynistic language and being a misogynist. I don't think you have to be both.
As far as society goes, it has given all the knowledge of hate language. I'm sure we could all write the most offensive thing possible for any demographic. The majority of us living in this society don't send these tweets.
I think sexism is more acceptable, towards men and women, than other isms. However, we are not conditioned to abuse.

Regarding, the female abuser, we don't know if she was motivated by her personal 'hatred of women' or just trolling.

Freya, you are coming at this issue from the same angle as I did. I think that, for the purpose of this discussion, we have to at least acknowledge that this is how (some) feminists interpret abuse towards women, even if we think that it might not necessarily be the case. I don't think there is a definitive test for deciding on the motives of the abuser, other than asking her, and that isn't possible. Even then, I am sure her answers would be open to interpretation.

How can using misoyginstic language not make someone a misogynist? If I was using "fggot" or "ngger" I think you'd probably conclude I was homophobic/racist.

No, Buffy. I am not arguing that. I am trying to say that to only have one explanation for everything, and to immediately assign that explanation to complex issues, is an over-simplification. Which sounds condescending, but isn't meant to be. And I am aware that this is an area to discuss feminism, so maybe I am trying to steer the discussion in a direction that isn't relevant here.

My views are on abuse being equal are from the same place as yours, Buffy. Just observations. This includes all forms of abuse.

But maybe men do get rape threats for expressing their opinion and it's just not newsworthy?

If you are only referring to rape threats as abuse then I'm sure this is more likely to be aimed at women. I didn't mention rape threats. I was talking about online abuse/written attacks. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

I think that believing the offensive words written is more dangerous than using the most offensive words you can to try and offend.

I don't think you should say its 'one crazy person', I think it's a horribly offensive person. She wasnt following the crowd, she wasn't trying to fit in. The majority of society were not abusing, society did not dismiss the cases because the victim was a woman. I'd be interested to know what percentage of tweets were positive.
I think to suggest the abusers are victims of their society is wrong. I'm surprised I haven't been honoured for not abusing people.
Regarding, the conditioning of the abusers to hate women. I don't know if this has occurred on a micro level. Or if the abusers have been conditioned to hate and abuse everyone. What I mean is, not every case, where a white person assaults a black person there is racial motivation. It could just be assault. Maybe I think it is too simplistic to suggest the abusers were led by society. Especially, when you can observe exactly how the vast majority on twitter behaved. Also, for you to pin it on society you need to know where the abuse came from.

I think society is worth looking at but not the default answer to everything. I think looking at how people react within society is much more useful. How did society react to the abuse? How did people react to convictions? Was it brushed under the carpet because it was just a laugh or nothing wrong with it? I don't believe so