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[Megatron]

You're probably right. I really do hope you are, anyway, because I really think the commentary needs to be more cutting than what we've seen so far. Like I said, nothing she's doing is wrong, I just don't think it's enough, and while I understand where she's coming from, I think she could take it a few steps further.

The thing I guess I can understand is that she's trying to make this appeal to a broader audience than just game nerds - I get that, but she could still take people to task about some of the more egregious bullshit. The tropes are what they are and they're fucked up and she's right when she talks about them, but I still want to see something with a sharper edge, and I know she's capable of it. Anita has been running Feminist Frequency for a long time and while she usually takes the higher ground, she's not afraid to put a shiv where it needs to go, and that's why it's weird watching her skirt around the worst of the worst like she has so far.

If what we've seen to date is just a lead-in to something much more aggressive, I'll be happy with that, it's just that right now there isn't a lot of meat on the bone.

[Angakuk]

Hehe, you said bone.

[The Man]

So the Associated Press can be pretty terrible.

Jennifer Rosoff's death and the Associated Press's sexist reporting of it.

[LadyShea]

What Happened When My Son Wore A Pink Headband To Walmart | Katie Vyktoriah

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by lisarea

(I'll point out that Heidi Klum is a model, and there are probably consensual photos of her in varying states of undress. Consent is such a boner-killer, though.)

There's no such thing as rape culture, though, just so we're all totally clear on that.

I Thanksed this post when it happened, but wanted to say that I've thought about this last point again and again since I read it. So Thanks Very Specially for that.

[lisarea]

It is gross, isn't it? And it's not some weird obscure fetish or anything. People getting off on the violation aspect of seeing parts of a woman's body without their consent is just wholesome family fun. That'll show them, those uppity ladies going around thinking they can do stuff. It's straight up punitive, and people really get off on that.

On that note, here is an anvil that is being dropped right now:

Misogynist Trolls Have An Agenda, And It’s Not Lulz | The Raw Story

She's linked a couple other stories about the same thing, and it is really high time that people started saying this and saying it again and repeating it until finally it becomes common knowledge that "internet trolls" are neither trolling nor are they limited to the internet. These are real people who genuinely hate women, and who consider women interlopers in public space. They're probably a little freer about making the explicit rape and death threats on the internet, but they're also out there in the real world, driving, shopping, working, and socializing, teaching, and going to school with your kids, and they actually think like that.

There are just so many times in the real world, even, when you just get some seemingly out of the blue misogyny, where some guy just flips the fuck out and threatens or even assaults you for no apparent reason, and you don't even want to tell anyone because you know they're going to think you're exaggerating or leaving stuff out because it sounds so crazy and why the hell would someone do that?

Well, that is why. They are misogynistic, often violently so, and they exist in the real world. (And as with the rape jokes thing, if you think you're making a sexist kitchen joke ironically or something, know that there are actual real life violent misogynists who are getting validation from you.)

[Ymir's blood]

I would Pin this but mmy phone isn't set up to do so.

My Mom Was An Underground Railroad For Abused Women: What She Taught Me About Feminism And Fear | xoJane

[LadyShea]

Mr Coren later wrote: 'We are arriving at the point where the anti-trolls are becoming as frothed-up, mental, mob-happy and bloodthirsty as the trolls. Sad days.'

Read more: Twitter troll sends MP Stella Creasy threat with image of masked knifeman | Mail Online
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

And

When the website Jezebel cataloged a series of racist tweets by high school students about President Obama, it not only published their names but also called their high schools and notified the principals about their tweets. In some cases, Jezebel listed the hobbies and activities of the students, essentially “SEO-shaming” them to potential colleges. Most of the kids have since deleted their Twitter accounts, but search any of their names on Google and you’ll likely find references to their racist tweets within the first few results.

Yes, what these kids wrote was reprehensible. But does a 16-year-old making crude comments to his friends deserve to be pilloried with a doggedness we typically reserve for politicians and public figures — or, at the very least, for adults?

We despise racism and sexism because they bully the less powerful, but at what point do the shamers become the bullies? After all, the hallmark of bullying isn’t just being mean. It also involves a power differential: The bully is the one who’s punching down.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Shaming Anyone on Social Media | Underwire | Wired.com

Lashback? Deflection? Consideration worthy? Discuss

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

What Happened When My Son Wore A Pink Headband To Walmart | Katie Vyktoriah

Fakity fake fake.

http://getoffmyinternets.net/a-mothe...to-do-a-thing/

From the comments:

She also claims she lied so much in school that CPS was called on her mom…twice. And that she performed fellatio so well on an ice cream cone that a guy across the room hanging out with his wife and kid sprung a boner. And…and…and…yeah this bitch is crazy. I’m surprised she hasn’t claimed to be a Time Lord and Queen of the Marzipans yet.

The "burly guy, wearing camo, smelled of cigarettes" is a little too obvious/convenient. How nice of him to fall into her stereotypes! She has removed her blog, Instagam, and Twitter since this story went viral.

Shea, your last link is a lot of . Good on Jezebel for publishing such terrible things. It wasn't "said among friends." It was out there. In public space. I don't have a lot of sympathies for people being horrible then whining how "bullied" they are.

[Janet]

I think the idea that "the bully is the one who punches down" is too simplistic. Most bullies are also victims, lashing back because of their low status, or perceived low status elsewhere. To me, this ties into the article someone posted up-thread about how Massachusetts is dealing with spousal abuse. These are people who thrive on holding and exercising power and when someone who has power over them can hold them to account, they behave better.

[erimir]

For teenagers I am a little wary of tarnishing their names online for years to come. But maybe there's no way to avoid that other than simply ignoring them.

Sending copies of the tweets to principals and things like that seems less harsh to me, since at least then it would be handled privately but there would be some consequences. Then again, maybe they come from a shitty town with a shitty racist principal and such.

I dunno.

[lisarea]

I am a little skeeved by internet vigilantes sometimes, but mostly when they don't confirm their stories first. Like calling that lady out. So far it's just speculation that she's lying, even if the case is convincing. I really really don't like calling people liars unless I'm surer than that.

But even if she is making it up, who is she hurting? It's a little classist, maybe, but it sounds like people are mad because they think she's looking for attention. She's not hating on a real person or a group of people. At most, it sounds like maybe she tried to narrate some topic she wanted to discuss by telling a story, and made the mistake of making it so over the top it was a little too shocking. Ultimately, though, I don't really get why people get so enraged even if someone is looking for attention. I guess attention seekers are annoying if you know them in real life and they're always interrupting your routine or something, but the response to perceived attention seeking is WAY out of proportion, especially when it's just some internet thing. Who cares that much?*

I'd draw a line at systemic and personalized hate, like people making threats or being explicitly bigoted, or at things like that Michael Nodiano with his little monologue about Steubenville. Those guys need to get called out, and they need to be called out specifically and by name. Some of them probably should be made examples of. I'd say once you're about 16 or so, you should be held accountable if you're spewing that sort of shit in a public forum. There's tons of stuff you can do at that age that'll fuck up your life long term. If they don't like it, they need to fix it themselves.

* And do let me say that women get hated on disproportionately for that.

Several years ago, there was a Linux blogger who started telling these increasingly over the top stories where he would fight injustices with FOSS advocacy. The first one I thought was weird, and by the second, which was even weirder, I started questioning them. People got REALLY MAD at me for doing that, and assumed I was taking the side of the bad guys from the stories or something. So based on the time between the first and second stories, I predicted a date when some other outrageous thing would happen. I was off by something like a week or two. So when that one came around and I did my ITYSs, the argument became, "Well, it doesn't matter if it's technically true! It is plausible and it is important that we as a society talk about this extremely serious problem!" (Yes, there were and still are some misconceptions, but they're nothing even remotely as dramatic as the things in those stories, and they could be much better addressed with a generalized FAQ.)

And make no mistake that this was happening contemporaneously with women being stalked and outed and harassed in many of the same forums for little to no reason.

[Qingdai]

P.C. Meyers drops the bomb on Michael Shermer.

What do you do when someone pulls the pin and hands you a grenade? » Pharyngula

From Matt Bors, cartoonist. Not surprised.

[Ari]

Sadly not surprised.
Blind libertarianism and sexism seem to go hand in invisible hand.

[livius drusus]

Jesus Christ, is there even a single conference or convention that isn't rife with harassment and/or rape?

[ChristinaM]

I really want to hurt this man. From the comments:

By the way, the “Culture of Rape” is pure fantasy conjured by politically correct fascists to bolster their ridiculous militant feminism.

I’ve been around a long time and have lived all over the U.S. and the world. I have never personally known a convicted rapist. There must have been some who were rapists but I never knew of their criminal history. I understand that rapists come from all walks of life. But I’ve never heard anybody speak glowingly of rape or wanting to rape. Of the men I’ve known well, there is no way they would ever rape anybody. Of course, there are those I don’t include in my social circles who might harbor thoughts of rape or who actually do rape.

And then there’s common sense. If 1/3 to 1/2 of women in the U.S. are raped AND if the typical rapists is a serial offender, then it’s a small fraction (though, perhaps, still a significant fraction) of men who actually rape.

[livius drusus]

What a complete idiot. He doesn't even know what rape culture means, and obviously he doesn't care to find out.

[ChristinaM]

The comments are really interesting because there are so many articulate victims posting that aren't dissolving into the impotent rage that many of us do when people say ignorant things and a lot of men that very openly admit that they want to change the dynamic but aren't sure how to do that without telling women how they should feel or pushing them toward a criminal justice system that more often than not makes it worse. I'm not sure what to think when well-meaning men do that because I get why they believe that from an intellectual standpoint but they don't seem to grasp just how deeply personal and traumatic it really is.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

Jesus Christ, is there even a single conference or convention that isn't rife with harassment and/or rape?

The OpenSF Non-monogamy conference I helped host last year was pretty low on harassment. All the reported harassment in the hotel proper was actually from other conference/party guests in the lobby.

I may have posted about it before but a few Atheist Conventions have started to adopt a modified version of our code of conduct.

The less than surprising surprise was that during the general organization phase we had two organizers (our connection to the gay non-monogamy groups) suddenly drop out due to our 'we can and will ban you' policy. Especially since *gasp* we actually used it to ban the accused rapist/stalker of one of our speakers from the event. They argued blindly and left in a huff. Turns out gayland has it's own harassment issues and someone had been banned from something, cause it sure did hit a sore spot.

[ChristinaM]

The other thing that was great about the comments IMO were those trigger warnings before personal stories. I've never seen any group that does that before but I wish that more of them did.

[lisarea]

Trigger warnings are pretty common on feminist forums and some other social justice type things. I agree. They're a really useful tool, and it'd be a great thing if they'd be more widely adopted. I guess they sort of do something like that with movies and TV where they have warnings and ratings.

I usually try to remember to provide some type of warning when I'm linking to something that might be triggering to someone (extreme violence, sexual violence, disordered eating, and self-harm are the most common things I've seen trigger warnings on), especially if it's not obvious that that sort of thing is going to be there.

[ChristinaM]

I think that I've unconsciously learned to scan the posts in those discussions and skip over the stories after the first sentence. I hope that doesn't sound like I don't think that people should tell their stories in public because it's a really powerful educational tool and often therapeutic but I usually wake up the morning after those threads with no fingernails left.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

P.C. Meyers drops the bomb on Michael Shermer.

What do you do when someone pulls the pin and hands you a grenade? » Pharyngula

On which topic:

Jim C. Hines » Sexual Harassment Conversations, in Comic Form

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Ari

Sadly not surprised.
Blind libertarianism and sexism seem to go hand in invisible hand.

I know I keep saying this, but I agree, it's totally not surprising. Libertarianism is all about protecting the privileged from accountability to the unprivileged, whether you're talking about the wealthy versus the poor, ethnic majorities vs minorities, men vs women, or whatever.

[Ymir's blood]