Online stalking by women and what it means for feminism

[Imnobody4]

Women turn out to be bloody good at on line stalking and harrassment. I did see some of this on line. Is the Internet revealing the dark side of women as well as men.
Click, Stalk, Destroy is Taylor’s new book and it has the jacket cover of a pacy thriller, featuring a darkly lit glass of wine next to a phone, which in this case was her persecutor’s main weapon. Plot twist: Taylor is also a chartered psychologist who has spent her career researching and consulting on female victims of abuse. At 35, she has written two Sunday Times bestselling books and has become a leading voice for changes to the way the criminal justice system prosecutes male violence.

One Sunday morning in late 2023, Jessica Taylor was at home trying her
best to relax and forget about it all. She had been the victim of a year-long stalking campaign targeting her livelihood, her family and her sanity. Then an email popped up on Taylor’s phone and the sick taste of fear was back. “Are the doors locked?” she whispered in panic.
Yet Click, Stalk, Destroy is not the latest Netflix series. It is a professional attempt to understand a new form of stalking and a lightly dramatised and anonymised rendering of Taylor’s brutal experience as its victim.
And there’s more: for a professional who has spent her career trying to combat male violence, her persecutors were women. The subtitle of the book is Inside the Minds of People Who Stalk Online and women can be experts at inflicting these new kinds of harm.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/5407e1fc-b96b-40ac-a89e-9fb05e4c77b4?shareToken=92b97cace731eb7bbe2346fa88ceea21

I'm in fandom. This is in no way surprising to me. Stalking and doxxing have been practices far too common among female fans for decades already. Pretty terrifying stuff, for sure.

Without wanting to be a flying monkeys, isn’t this the woman who was criticised for using the stories of her patients without permission?
Perhaps initial justified criticism grew into stalking and harassment when the response wasn’t adequate.

I must say, I don’t know much about it and am happy to be told I’m wrong. I may be completely unreasonably spreading malicious rumours. Alternatively there may be another side to her story.

Yes, she is a very problematic individual.

Is this thread title yours OP? What do you think it means for feminism?

This all sounds very sensationalised and not presented with the sort of intellectual detachment I’d want from someone handling such a sensitive subject matter. It’s like she just needed an angle and decided to go with “ZOMG!!! The wimmins can be criminals toooooo!” Like we know this, that’s why we’re trying to protect incarcerated women from men trying to get into their cells!

Look up Jessica Taylor, and all will become clear.

And of course, she could be right about this issue, but unreasonable in how she applies the experience to her own situation.

So wrote excellently about the topic but unable to view her own situation accurately.

…Oh dear.

Yes women can and do commit crime, albeit of course women commit massively fewer crimes than men commit, and men commit over 90% of violent and sexual crime.
I'm not sure that this says anything at all about feminism really. I don't think feminism could ever (sensibly) say that women are perfect. The point is surely that women are of equal value to men and must be treated as such, irrespective of the fact that some individual women can be badly-behaved.

I must say, I don’t know much about it and am happy to be told I’m wrong. I may be completely unreasonably spreading malicious rumours. Alternatively there may be another side to her story.

Taylor told me that complaints about her to the British Psychological Society led to a six-month investigation that eventually cleared her name.

This is very like other cases like Kate Clanchy.

It was an auto title, I meant to delete the feminism bit but failed.
Having said that this kind of mobbing can be seen in the loose group of feminism which goes beyond the usual tribalism, it's clearly evident in the behaviour of TRAs.
Anything meant to destroy a woman could mean another women doesn't put their head above the parapet.Its insiduous.

^"Taylor told me that complaints about her to the British Psychological Society led to a six-month investigation that eventually cleared her name."^

This is a massive misrepresentation (as is typical for Jess) as the BPS is not a regulatory body.

I don't see how this "stalking" by women on Tattle would work? AFAIK there isn't any form of messaging function on Tattle.

I'm sure people do comment on her sometimes dangerous advice.

One has to tread carefully to avoid being the wrong side of defamation laws, but I would urge anyone to have a look at discussions about Jess Taylor on X and consider whether there might be another side to this story.

There is a bbc story on the complaints made about her by patients with eating disorders.

This is a useful Substack that gives a different point of view to consider.
https://kerrydaynes.substack.com/p/click-lie-repeat-inside-the-claims

This isn't just about Jess Taylor. It's really about sites like Tattle. There have been many victims. It's being discussed as part of the online safety act.

Ashley James: When trolls told social services I was a bad mum, my world came crashing down share.google/KcOiI7SSTrF8y7oH6

Is anyone still believing anything Jessica Taylor says???

https://kerrydaynes.substack.com/p/click-lie-repeat-inside-the-claims

nb Some of the comments on this article are mind boggling.

Wow. Thanks for sharing this

Liz Fraser and Jack Monroe also feel they’ve been stalked and harassed.
The objects of these situations seem to have certain commonalities, which seem to leave them exposed to interest from people who like exposing inconsistencies with people’s presentation.

Maybe there’s been a period of adjusting when people have been getting used to having a curated public presence. There will have been times, perhaps, that choosing a polished presentation risks slipping over the line into outright fabrication. Rather like your CV- we all know it needs a polish to show things in their best light. It shouldn’t be actually incorrect.

Trump would also say that he was misrepresented in the media, and targeted in a similar way.

This is the second article within a week in the Times about female stalkers, in both cases there is a book out or one being written. Mumsnet gets mentioned in the earlier article.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/19d7468e-e278-46d5-abdf-67dca5111b52?shareToken=1c80228224b724a12cb08c7bee66e9d0&ver=article

I know for a fact that there is a lot more to this story…

Thanks to PP for sharing that substack. Quite a shocking read — and the author of that blog is most definitely not anonymous. She hasn’t been forced to take it down so one can only assume that it’s true.

Trolling is obviously a hot topic. But both Jess Taylor and others who have painted themselves as victims of trolling have done things which allegedly don’t tally with their version of events. And it’s much more than a little polishing of the cv. In one case the “victim” has shared huge amounts of detail about her life then been surprised or shocked when people comment on it.

On the other hand, mixed in with legitimate criticisms there are huge amounts of unkind, unfair, and outright cruel comments shared about all these people. Where do we draw the line? I’d say that if you’re in the public eye you have to have a thick skin, but that doesn’t extend to actual stalking of course. The trouble is, in these cases, I haven’t seen them produce evidence of stalking. They’ve alleged it. And arguably because they don’t like their version of events to be challenged.

The problem is that some types of people think even the mildest of criticism or pointing out inconsistencies is 'hate' or 'stalking'. Public figures should expect for others to scrutinise what they say and point out inconsistencies (or outright lies about experience or expertise).

I'm sure it feels horrible if other people are questioning the narrative you want them to believe and perhaps the narrative you even believe yourself. However, they may be right. If they're right it's not stalking, it's holding to account.

And yes, when people have been deceived they sometimes get angry and make nasty comments. Also not stalking.

How are these two cases in any way the same?