On BBC today - "Is there a tech solution for hatred of women?"

[NiceTabard]

here

In the wake of the convictions today of threats etc to 2 women on twitter. The article comes from a standpoint that women are targeted on the net in a certain way & possible reasons for it.

It is a much stronger article than I am used to reading on the BBC and quite enjoyed it! The later comments are also broadly interesting.

What strikes me is that the article included the bald statement from a US tech journalist:

"If it's a social problem and not a technological one, what is the root of it? Ms Norton, believes it is stark:

"The social problem is that men are raised to hate women and technology is not going to fix that. What's going to fix that is a societal conversation about why that is and why it shouldn't be, and why women aren't a threat to men. And the technology gives us the opportunity to have that conversation. It's not always a pleasant conversation, but we need to have it. Just shutting down the voices we don't like doesn't make the sentiments go away."

This of course has resulted in a lot of reaction (understandably TBH) from men saying well I don't hate women so that is wrong, men have mothers who they love so that is wrong...

It's an interesting point for discussion though, as TBH the language and attitudes about women in day to day life belie an attitude of, if not universal hatred, certainly plenty of other negative feelings. Even ones which are so common they go un-noticed.

I think that men in general are certainly raised to see women in a range of ways that are not good. Not all of that translates to "hatred". Just maybe being dismissive / patronising / only interested in women of they are sexually appealing. Maybe even tiny things like my dad will always draw attention to a "bloody woman" doing something wrong, whereas when a man does the same thing he doesn't mention the sex of the miscreant! In my own life there are just tiny things every day that all add up to, well yes, generally men are raised to view women negatively, in some ways. Even the ones they like

From the POV of Ms Norton, having spent a decade looking into this I can well imagine that it must feel like all men are raised to hate women!

Anyway.

Bit of a stream of consciousness there! What do you think?

Yup.

The ideas aren't all bad, but if it doesn't work for you there shouldn't be guilt. But there is.

Just daring to jump in here. Isn't all that pressure partly a result of not seeing women as individual people but rather as one homogeneous (sp?) mass?

I am, I will admit, a lentil weaving yoghurt knitter (though I do use disposable nappies), but I would like to believe that I am capable of enough empathy to realise that though this approach is best for me and fits the personalities of my children, other women have different lives and different babies and thus different things would be best for them.

If I lean in a direction it's the lentil weaving one, but I think it's a combination of seeing all women as the same, and also a general lack of interest in the physical/emotional/time effects on women.

I really notice it with feeding your children advice

I think it's more sinister than that.

Plus some of it's more subtle and possibly barely noticeable unless you're looking out for it. Once you start noticing it, you can't stop.

Bringing this back to what happens online, the poster who started the aforementioned thread responded robustly and assertively to accusations that: she was a terrible mother, a princess who couldn't be parted from her husband for the night when he (perfectly reasonably in people's views, slept in the same room as the groom - this seems to be some new fashion which was lost on me I admit). A mother who would personally create an attachment disorder in her child by putting a wedding over staying at home with her baby.

She wasn't rude. HOW she wasn't I don't know.

Yet even some writers who agreed with her choices picked her up on her language and absence of conciliatory, soothing words, or any apologia for her choices.

It reminded me how women are expected to modify their language so much, even in the face of rudeness and shocking allegations - and even when angry.

Yy Dusk.

Thank you Dusk for pointing out I had used the phrase "this is the kicker" incorrectly upthread, I will know to express that differently if it comes up in the future. I didn't know that about poker.

Apologies as well for posting about the turing test, I just find that sort of thing interesting, I understand it was off topic though.

Is this definition of kicker OK though? It's on merriam webster.

"an unexpected and surprising remark, revelation, or set of circumstances"? That was what I thought I was using, but if that's not right then good to find out.

It is very interesting Nice! I studied it as part pof my degree. Sometimes they put entrants online and you can test them.

Modern ones learn from their testers, iyswim. In context with this thread, I think that's where they fall down, they copy too much instead of taking on a personality that is part of a recognisable wider group personality.

Isn't there an asimov story where they try to teach a computer to understand jokes or something? I love all that stuff

Back on topic... I am terrible at spotting sexes of people online whatever and although sometimes I wonder, generally I don't really pay too much heed.

If someone is being a sexist arse then they need dealing with and I think that when people start guessing that someone is a bloke it can weaken the argument a bit. That's just my opinion though.

Re the depression point and other (related?) issues like addiction, the way women are treated if they have children often seems to be focussed on the children, with how the woman is with it all and any help she gets often coming a distant second, if it is considered at all.

I doubt men with children who seek help with various problems are treated in that way. I think they are still seen as people in their own right.

NT -

1 - I guess so if it is on the MW - the kicker is the thing that is revealed second... not the main hand

2 - disagree. I think spotting men (if you are right) annoys them and they say it weakens your argument, because now you are anti-men. Actually it is all part of the false - equality nonsense that supports male privilege (the "oh if a woman said that...." argument... nonsense on a million levels we do not need to rehearse here)

3 - yes, yes, a world of yes. I have never heard of a woman with PND being shipped out of the house for a break from family life but I have known of men with MH problems being treated that way because small children are stressful. I have been told that I have to find a way to look after myself because everyone is relying on me - in other words, the responsibility for being well is all mine, BUT not for me - because I am now an instrument of FAMILY and I must stay functional at all costs

Yes re. 2 if there is a "reveal". Thing is on MN unless they rip off the mask (rare) or trip up horribly (more common) they will continue saying I am a woman and these are my views. And then they say, you say anyone who disagrees with you must be a man but I'm a woman, so your reponses show you up as woman-hating and blinkered, or I'm a woman and these are my genuine views so you need to take them on board or you are not being decent or reasonable....

That is the way it often goes down on MN and personally (can't stress that enough) I feel that calling posters out as men is often counter-productive and shifts the argument.

I try (!) to rebuff POV that I find problematic and not worry too much if it's a male / female / teen / older person / whatever.

Re 3 yes I have experiences in that area myself as well, and as an adult women who had been independent for years, to find on seeking medical advice that I was no longer, basically, of any interest at all because I had young children was a HUGE shock.

I checked my privilege hell yes I have lots. Hence losing it all like that because I had borne a child was a really big shock.

I think misrepresenting your sex is a form of trolling and a serious problem in discussion forums.

Reading the article you posted again, I think I plump for a combined approach to online misogyny and trolling.

Much better information-sharing between social networks and a more sophisticated understanding of tech that's available to block hate speech and persistent trolls.

Better education for online users about how to engage safely online and protect their spaces. That's a shared responsibility though for a site and its users. This site with its 'report and ignore' guideline needs to be backed up by fast attention to reports and increased respect for consumer intelligence. So if a poster suspects someone is not who they seem (e.g. a misogynistic man posing as a woman, or a poster consumers recognise has been banned before) and goes to the trouble of being socially responsible and community-minded enough to report, that site needs to respect that consumer intelligence and take it seriously.

There are things that posters themselves can do in addition to the above though.

As the article says, if hate speech, inflammatory posts/views or derailments turn up on a thread, posters wanting an on-topic respectful discourse need to get far more assertive and less reactionary, difficult though that can be.

I've often lurked on threads on THIS board and have felt enormously frustrated at how many times a thread has been diverted according to a single poster's agenda. Maybe folks need to be less polite and accommodating and insist that the discussion stays focused. This thread is a case in point, although I was hoist my my own petard by engaging with a post about news anchors! (Sorry for that)

Do you, ton? Always?

Several of the male MN posters don't state their sex - on any other forum they'd probably be assumed to be male but on MN I assume all are female until some comment shows otherwise. If posters only go on "factual" bits of the site, it probably takes ages to come up; on Relationships, it probably automatically comes up on the first post.

I know what you mean, NiceTabard (I am imagining you in a rounders vest, by the way) about not guessing and I don't actually have the confidence to say anything. But I have been impressed seeing another poster doing it, or rather asking the poster repeatedly if (s)he was a man and not getting a straight answer - which I thought was interesting, as he obviously didn't want to admit he was a man but couldn't outright lie - an interesting psychological point.

Tonandfeather, as I understand you, you aren't saying it is trolling not to call yourself a name like "LIZZYJANEWHICHISAWOMAN" or "BUTCHJOHNWHICHISAMAN" (assuming they are correct). You are saying it is a form of trolling to actively mislead, I think. I agree - there is no need to say what sex you are when you are talking about ofsted reports, but as soon as you start blarting on about feminism I think it is fair that people expect to know which they are talking to, and wrong to mislead

Derailing - I do not think is a crime. Necessarily. I think derailing with a negative agenda is trolling; but I think boringness can be as killing and stultifying on a thread (or more) than a positive, constructive digression into a different area.

For instance - unless the OP is something like, "attempting low carbing. tell me what you have for breakfast" I cannot bear the threads which are just millions of people piling in to share their utterly quotidien experiences with no comment or analysis. Just page after page of "I like eggs" or "we have 2 bathrooms" or "I usually drop the little one off first and then have to run to the junior school" or whatever. SO WHAT? What is your point? Don't get me wrong I love chatting and nosing about in other people's lives but I always want it to lead somewhere, to have some sort of musing or thought attached, or at least jokes, or a point of some sort. I mean it doesn't matter because I don't read the "tell me what you have for breakfast" ones, but if the OP is something like "is it fair to give DCs presents of different values?" I want to read a discussion of that, not a load of people going "I GAVE MY KIDS X AND Y ME ME ME ME THE END"

Oh, that is a nice tabard.
I had something like this in my head

Do I always do what, Doctrine?

The main bit of this site I use is relationships so yes, it is much easier to spot a misogynist man. I'd have thought the same was true on this board. Trolling of any boards where sensitive issues are being discussed tends to cause more damage than in say, education or DIY.

The derailing I was talking about was specifically the type I mentioned in an earlier post. When a misogynist barges on to a thread and tries to change the discussion topic, or talk only about his/her bete-noir ad nauseum, but in an inflammatory "you bloody feminists" way. The pages and pages of arguments and rebuttals can be off-putting to folks who wanted to discuss the original topic - and I guess as a lurker on this board and not a regular writer, who often because of clock differences/work sees threads when they have become established, my preference would be for those on the thread earlier not to engage with someone who's getting off on the engagement and disruption.

Not the innocent tangential habit of conversations drifting off to discuss something else for a while, or good-natured joshing.

Yes I can see that logic. I agree that the rebuttals and intelligent defenses in the face of an ill-conceived argument can be useful on occasions too, not to the troll of course, but to others reading.

lol@ tabard related links