| >I am dismissive of the idea that men become the targets of similar harassment campaigns, yes. Similar here is what is often called a "weasel word" -- to make the whole thing subjective and impossible to disprove (since nobody knows what would be "similar" enough to satisfy the un-disclosed similarity criteria -- in other words, sort like the "no true scotsman" fallacy). If we omit that word, the truth is simply this: men who write or men who post online in general also can and often do become targets of harassment campaigns. Especially on the internet, where harassment comes as easy as writing a swearing/threatening/derogatory comment and mobs are quick to jump on mass attacks. Their attackers may not call them "bitches" and "sluts" (so in that sense it's not "similar") but they do call them tons of other things, including things that they don't call women (e.g. "faggot"). Here are some examples grabbed from literally the first page of Google search: Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%. In terms of specific experiences, men are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ One blogpost (civilly) critical of Sarkeesian and her supporters offers a fully sourced compilation of online comments wishing death, rape, mutilation and deadly diseases upon Jack Thompson, an activist critical of violent and sexual content in videogames—as well as death threats directed at male videogame developers who ran afoul of their fans. Meanwhile, role-playing game designer James Desborough claims to have been viciously threatened for defending the use of sexual violence as a plot element in games. And film blogger Alex Sandell (Juicy Cerebellum) has described receiving not only a deluge of hate mail but threatening phone calls—sometimes in the middle of the night, and sometimes made to his relatives—after writing negative reviews of the first two Lord of the Rings movies. In the political sphere, several conservative male writers and activists have been targeted for rape and death threats, with their phone numbers publicly posted, after producing a documentary critical of the Occupy movement. Right-wing bloggers involved in the bizarre war with leftist activist Brett Kimberlin that David Weigel recently chronicled in The Daily Beast have faced scary cyber-harassment from some of Kimberlin’s supporters, including graphic fantasies of violent revenge, lurid sexual slurs, and accusations of child pornography. (Particularly disturbing examples are documented in a blogpost by First Amendment advocate Ken White.) On the other side, Charles Johnson, who runs the blog Little Green Footballs, relocated to a gated community because of threats he received after breaking with the right and embracing more liberal politics. One male victim of cyberstalking, British expatriate novelist James Lasdun, told his story in the 2013 memoir, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked. Lasdun’s stalker, a former creative-writing student whose romantic overtures he had rejected, not only barraged him with abusive messages but emailed his colleagues accusing him of stealing her work, preying on female students, and even setting her up to be raped; she posted similar slanders on websites including Amazon.com and Wikipedia. But an experience like Lasdun’s gets no political sympathy; indeed, the review in The New Yorker chided him for failing to admit his “crush” on the woman and his role in leading her on. [a] study, conducted by the British think tank Demos, was limited to a fairly small sample of British celebrities, journalists and politicians whose Twitter timelines were tracked over a two-week period, its findings are nonetheless interesting. On the whole, 2.5 percent of the tweets sent to the men but fewer than 1 percent of those sent to women were classified as abusive. Male politicians fared especially badly, receiving more than six times as much abuse as female politicians. The only category in which women got more Twitter abuse than men was journalism: abusive messages accounted for more than 5 percent of the tweets sent to the female journalists and TV presenters in the study and fewer than 2 percent of the ones sent to the male journalists. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/04/men-are-har... |
Have you recently done any of the following on HN:
Engaged a woman in good faith discussion?
Upvoted her comments, submissions, or written work?
Addressed the substance of her points instead of nitpicking minor issues or focusing on her gender in some way?
Engaged with her in a manner that in some way enhanced her public reputation as a professional or otherwise enhanced her professionally?
These things happen routinely for men on HN. I think they are far less common for women.
I am not afraid to stick my neck out, but I am unusual for a woman in many ways, yet I am still finding it enormously frustrating. The degree to which expressing myself gets hatred, sexual harassment or dismissal vastly outweighs the degree to which anything I do gets taken in any way seriously. The sad thing is that I suspect my experiences are dramatically more positive than what is typical for a woman online.