Abusive
I'm pleased that my New Statesman colleague Helen Lewis-Hasteley kicked off a debate about the abuse suffered by female bloggers. It's a subject that deserved to be heard by a wider audience and it's probably quite an eye-opener for some of us. The more you read, the more you realise it's a widespread problem.
The bottom half of the internet is a scary place, and there be dragons. If TV was like the internet, you'd watch a well crafted 40-minute documentary and then have to sit through four hours of random people saying "Well, I didn't even watch the programme, but I know enough about it to decide that it was entirely wrong" or "Oh dear. The presenter clearly needs to have more sex." This is the wonder of Web 2.0. We have blogs - horrible blogs like this one. We have comment boxes - catflaps that you can crawl through to get your voice heard. We have visitor books full of dirty protests. (Not all the time, of course. Often comments are constructive, insightful things.)
Publishing means you get your voice out there, your words out there. It means you get the odd bit of trolling and the odd bit of abuse, which can be annoying or distressing, depending on the severity or the persistence, and depending on the personal nature of it. I've been called a few names, and I've been slagged off a few times. I've been lied about and accused of things I haven't done. But I have to say, as a male writer, I've never experienced anything approaching the threats described by many female writers over the past few days. It's really shocking, and I can't help but come to the conclusion that it is gender-based, and directed at women, mainly by men.
Already, a few predictably contrarian rumblings have started. Ooh, these women, they just need to 'man up' and get on with it. Everyone gets abuse; if you can't stand the heat, and so on, they say. But it is not just online abuse. I think we all expect a bit of abuse when we write stuff. It happens if you have an email address, a comments box or a photo byline. But judging by what I have read about and heard about over the past few days, the only sensible thing to recognise is that there is a particular kind of abuse aimed at women writers, and that it's not really the same thing as the (distressing and upsetting, but different) abuse levelled at writers of all kinds. It's not even a particularly subtle thing to recognise. It's really there.
I say all this despite having been accused of being a misogynist myself, of hating women, of abusing women, of wishing violence and death on women, due to things that I've said or written. I'm not and I haven't. But then that's exactly what an overprivileged woman-hater would say, isn't it? Well, it's not for me to judge. And I'm not doing the 'poor me, I've suffered too' thing either. Whatever minor inconveniences I've gone through are nothing compared to the awful threats and abuse endured by women writers who have dared to have an opinion or dared to say what they want.
This isn't about creating an environment in which women can't be criticised when they're wrong, can't be called idiots when they're idiotic or can't be treated with the same respect (or lack of it) that we've given to male writers. It's not about that. This is about a particular kind of abuse that is reserved only for women, which is happening, and which is documented. We can pretend it's not there, or that it's not important, or that these writers are just oversensitive female types, but that just isn't right. Sure, I've been called a cunt plenty of times, and it's been annoying and hurtful on occasions, but no-one's threatened to rape me or said that I deserved to be hurt. That's a whole different world of intent, and aggression. We need to recognise this.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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November 7th, 2011 - 12:20
Well let’s clear some things up then.
I’m going to r*** you. You deserve to be hurt.
I jest. As a female blogger, thank you for this. I’ve had the above said to me before, and frankly it’t absurd. You rarely see comments from women on male blogs about anal r***, so why the other side of the coin should choose to rear it’s ugly head is beyond me.
November 7th, 2011 - 13:31
You rarely see comments from women on male blogs about anal r***,
No, it’s mainly women who are ‘treated’ to that delight.
I’ve been thinking of starting a blog myself, having so much to say for myself and sometimes feeling a bit ‘ranty’ but this sort of puts me off. Should it?
November 7th, 2011 - 13:38
I hope it doesn’t!
November 7th, 2011 - 19:24
The only places online I’ve seen men getting sexually-directed abuse and threats of violence are high-profile atheists blogging a rationalist agenda.
And even there, it’s rare and nothing like the tone I see when women offer political comment. Nothing like the sheer volume and, worse, there is a sense that it’s a casual throwaway “Of course we say that” thing , or a casual amusement – at least the religious nutjobs know that they are doing something severely and shockingly transgressive, and know that there’s shock value in it.
I have a politically-active partner, and I worry what’ll turn up on the doorstep. She gets abuse that’ll never turn up in my inbox, and some of it feels *real*. I know damn’ well that the spotty oiks and failed salesmen who do this would never direct such abuse at a male-identified blogger; I’m pretty sure that they’d shut up if they knew what her partner does, eight hours of training a week, and a weekend or two every month at dojos up and down the country. But it’s no good for her to be seen relying on some individual for protection – and it’d be no better if she did, because the abuse and the threats would simply be directed elsewhere. This is a problem for a community to fix, not just a committed individual.
November 9th, 2011 - 13:44
If anybody has any doubt as to the reality of this problem, they need only compare the comments under any of Laurie Penny’s NS posts to those of any of the men writing there. And then remember that what they see is what survived moderation… (I presume there must be some moderation on the NS blogs.)
November 10th, 2011 - 23:22
I had no idea that this sort of thing was going on. The most offensive thing anyone’s written on my blog is that they disagree with my opinions and even that doesn’t happen much. Why are (a small proportion) of men so frightened of women? and it IS fear because hatred is always based ultimately on fear. And will it ever stop?
November 29th, 2011 - 15:59
You probably don’t receive too many offensive posts because of your topic area of applying old fashioned skills and values to modern life. Women who stick to crochet, knitting or sewing blogs likewise probably don’t receive much abusive comment.
Neither your blog, nor any crochet, knotting or sewing blog theratens insecure male egos.
Venture outside your remit into areas such as engineering, science, maths, technology or politics – typically areas where women ‘just should not be’ and where they are entirely in the ‘wrong place’ !!! Then you’ll start getting abuse; on-line and in real life, the verbal abuse being institutionally supported if you actually work in any of these areas.
The behaviour exhibited by these deeply disturbed and insecure individuals is appalling and upsetting. I find it really sad that it is bolstered by the patriarchal and misogynist environment continuously fostered in our society and that a blog like yours would simply be taken by these people as implicit support and a justification to attack women stepping outside pre-defined roles of wife mother cook housekeeper and never ever being thought of as capable in any way at all. Despite that fact that most of us know that to be far from the truth.
November 11th, 2011 - 13:27
I only recently read about this phenomenon.
I imagine that the same pillocks that threaten to rape women bloggers are those that then turn round and don’t get that rape is an act of violence rather than a sexual act… or I suppose that they think all sex is an act of violence and therefore don’t see the difference. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Maybe there should be some sort of online service that hunts down the IP adress of these cowards and then creeps into these people’s bathrooms and writes threatening messages on the condensation on their mirrors? That would be fun.
November 14th, 2011 - 13:40
thanks for linking to my blog! sorry didn’t say thank you before – didn’t realise!
And great post. I think it’s v important that men bloggers talk about this issue too, as lots of deniers have been saying it’s just as bad for men or why aren’t we talking about the abuse men bloggers get. Posts like this show how although everyone gets abuse online, the types of abuse and the reasons why the abuse happens are different.
November 22nd, 2011 - 11:16
Great article Anton, as a female blogger I agree that there’s some kind of feeling of inevitability that it always needs to be there. It doesn’t.
November 22nd, 2011 - 18:22
“If TV was like the internet, you’d watch a well crafted 40-minute documentary and then have to sit through four hours of random people saying “Well, I didn’t even watch the programme, but I know enough about it to decide that it was entirely wrong” or “Oh dear. The presenter clearly needs to have more sex.” ”
Oh Lord, don’t give the Beeb any more ideas of how to cut down the content of docs they intend to sell to stations with adverts by pretending they have come up with a clever ‘extra’.
‘Freeze Frame’ my arse. (Which I don’t mean as a sexual threat neither)
On topic, good blog, and I agree – on first hearing it you do think its not a huge problem, hazard of the trade etc. Then you start to join the dots and what should have been obvious smacks you in the mush.
November 29th, 2011 - 16:09
Thanks for the blog article. Here’s some links from geekfeminism.org
This http://geekfeminism.org/2009/10/08/psa-mikeeusas-hate-speech-and-harassment/ discusses the harassment committed by one individual to women in the Open Source Software movement.
This http://geekfeminism.org/2009/10/19/mikeeusas-code-now-available-on-geekfeminism-org/ shows what they did to his code.
And these http://geekfeminism.org/2011/10/11/online-harassment-as-a-daily-hazard-when-trolls-feed-themselves/ , http://geekfeminism.org/2011/10/13/on-being-harassed-a-little-gf-history-and-some-current-events/ discuss the topic of on-line harassment and intimidation .
Worth reading.