Jackson Free Press

Joan Walsh of Salon has a fascinating story about how women are often treated online, using the ugly attacks on Kathy Sierra as an example. She writes:

When I joined Salon in 1998, I had no idea what was about to hit me (figuratively, folks, I've never been hit). I had written about controversial topics for newspapers and magazines -- race relations, affirmative action, women's rights, Israel and the Palestinians; every kind of politics, state, local and national. My edgiest work had been the target of nasty letter-writing campaigns, even protests. But I'd never been truly, viciously attacked, in terms relating to my intellect, my appearance or my sexuality, and I'd never experienced a personal threat -- to anything other than my future employment at a given publication, if it caved to outside pressure.

But once I joined Salon I started receiving the creepiest personal e-mails about my work. Anything I wrote that vaguely defended President Clinton or criticized his attackers, in particular, would get me a torrent of badly spelled e-mail, often from Free Republic readers and posters. There were themes: A significant subset tended to depict me in a Monica Lewinsky role, often graphically. Like Kathy Sierra, I endured too many references to "cum" in those e-mails. I'll forgo other details for the sake of brevity and discretion.

But it was hard to know for sure how much had to do with my gender. David Talbot was regularly attacked by wingnuts as a Clinton "butt-boy," so it was impossible to say it was all about my being a woman. It still seems that when a man comes in for abuse online, he's disproportionately attacked as gay -- and if he is gay, like Andrew Sullivan, who wrote a column for us for a while, his hate mail at Salon is likely to be comparable to mine: heavy on sexual imagery and insult, sometimes bordering on violence. Yuck. I couldn't see into anyone else's in box to be sure if the abuse I was getting was disproportionate, but I suspected it was. Mostly I just ignored it.

When Salon automated its letters, ideas that had only seen our in boxes at Salon were suddenly turning up on the site. And I couldn't deny the pattern: Women came in for the cruelest and most graphic criticism and taunting. Gary Kamiya summed it up well in a piece on overall online feedback, noting "an ugly misogynistic aspect" to the reaction to women writers. One thing I noticed early on: We all got nicknames. I'm "Joanie," Rebecca Traister is "Becky," Debra Dickerson is "Debbie" and on and on. There are lots of comments about our looks and sexuality or ... likability, to avoid using the f-word, a theme you almost never see even in angry, nasty threads about male writers. Most common is a sneering undercurrent of certainty that the woman in question is just plain stupid; it's hard to believe we have jobs at all. (But then, since a woman is, unbelievably, the clueless, incompetent boss of Salon, it makes a certain kind of sense.)

Previous Commentsshow

Joan is certainly right: Small-minded men resort to attacks on women's appearances, and post vague threats in the form of jokes, toward women they don't agree with. I've personally dealt with this for years, starting back when I wrote for the male-dominated Intellectualcapital.com. Then, if you call them out on it, they're just kidding, and make fun of you for pointing it out. I've personally developed a thick skin for it when it's pointed toward me, believing it simply means they are not intelligent enough to make a real argument so they start talking about women in physical terms. It is a clear sign of a moron, in other words, who probably has a tortued personal life. (If you're lucky enough to meet their wives, you start to see how true that statement is. I mean, a misogynist is a misogynist.) I will say, I still get angry when these kinds of insults and veiled threats are directed toward my staff or other readers, though. Good for Joan for writing about the problem. And I see, today, that Salon is changing its letters policy to require registration. The truth is, many men will go to great lengths to silence opinionated, smart women. And they will often do it by trying to turn them into objects to be ridiculed–much as Frank Melton did when he turned Christopher Walker loose on Faye Peterson. It was at that moment when I realized how little character Mr. Melton really has.

DonnaLadd

Apr 5 2007

Thanks to the anonymity of the Internet, insults are a dime a dozen these days. Having posters register on Salon is a good idea. It may not weed out all the bad apples, but it'll help. Yahoo had to disable their comments feature altogether because of the idiotic, hateful, disgusting messages people were leaving there.

LatashaWillis

Apr 5 2007

I know, L.W. We didn't require registration here for a long time. At first, it worked to delete the ugly comments and yell at them. Then you get that one obsessive dude who will stop at nothing to shut down conversation and belittle the other posters. Everybody's requiring registration these days–even the ones who proclaimed that they never would. Then their turn comes. But the misogyny is so true. I've seen (local) sites that will delete the least little insult about men without comment (especially anything physical), but leave up (or post) the worst about women. Ultimately, they get theirs because they run off everybody except those who don't mind being in the company of misogynists. However, I can understand Sierra's concern about anonymous threats, or joking, veiled ones. People who "argue" using physical insults and veiled threats clearly are mentally incompetent freaks–who knows what they will do with their obsession?

DonnaLadd

Apr 5 2007

Needless to say, by the way, this is just another attempt to silence women. The best response is anything but silence. Personally, I've been inspired by every single attempt to silence me. You don't know me very well if you think otherwise. I was raised by a mama who could not express herself, at all, by writing words or by reading them–the more someone tries to keep me from expressing what's on my mind, the more I'm going to express it. And the harder I will work to express it well. It's an approach I suggest to all women. Excellent work is the best response. Live it. Breathe it. Say it.

DonnaLadd

Apr 5 2007

And calling the men "gay" is also offensive. By gay they mean woman-like, and that's supposed to be an insult? My favorite are the jabbed responses you get to your personal email, but they are too chickenshit to put it on the actual blog :)

emilyb

Apr 5 2007

Even as a man, I'm still flabbergasted by how low people will stoop to attack people on ultimately trivial aspects of their person. It's especially hard to wrap myself around the fact that lots of men will treat women that way - especially in this day and age. Then again, I never had a father who engaged in sexist conversation; nor did my grandfather ever engage in blatant sexism (although he still had a few rather paternalistic attitudes about women in the workplace due to their intrinsic "traditional role" in society, especially by today's standards. But even so he was not anywhere near a blatant sexist - at least compared to men born in 1914 , RIP Grandpa). Nor did any of the men I grew up with in my community engage in sexist discussions in all male groups (well, 98% of them at least, or at least not around me). But even so, just because I had no personal experience with such blatantness doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Maybe I was just lucky, I don't know. Anyway, y'all've got this man in your corner . As for the rest, about the nature of the insults, y'all've said it all. Name calling, especially of a derogatorily sexual nature, is a sure sign of a moron - fit only for lower-half of barely pubescent children. How ANY half-way intelligent adult can think they're being impressive using those kinds of insults is beyond me. P.S. This is a "historic" moment in my JFP experience. MY 1,000th (ONE THOUSANDTH) POST .

Philip

Apr 5 2007

P.S. This is a "historic" moment in my JFP experience. MY 1,000th (ONE THOUSANDTH) POST . Congrats, dude!

LatashaWillis

Apr 5 2007

drama queen.

Kingfish

Apr 5 2007

Well we all know, the troll attacks the person and not the idea, and if you wanna attack a woman I suppose include lots of body part depictions, although you'd think the transparent idiocy of these trolls would make them into a joke and be seen as sad creatures as opposed to any threat. Any blog should require registration, I can't see how one could function civilized to be honest. The discussions here seem fairly reasonable for the most part, hopefully the authors aren't subject to the violent types of trolling of Ms. Sierra.

GLewis

Apr 6 2007

Agreed, GLewis. We've had two, maybe three, trolls who I thought could be scary early on. One was so obsessed that I wondered if he was hiding in the yard peeking in the windows. And he did some really, really ugly stuff–not direct threats but things that had many folks in North Jackson downright mortified. (Not going to repeat them here.) We knew his identity. He also had an alias that he sent his more ugly stuff to our early bloggers under, and he has used an number of transparent screen names to get ugly. One troll would spam all of our petitions (like the Killen one) with really, really, really ugly, violent language, especially against Knol (gay) and me (a woman). That same person goes to other Web sites and sends filthy messages to me and other bloggers here through those Web sites. And the guys I dubbed N-Jam (North Jackson Angry Men's Club) seem to love talking about women's body parts and looks in their "critiques" of ideas they disagree with, and even routinely post unattractive photos of female public figures and make fun of them. They do that openly, not seeming to understand what kind of men it makes them look like. There is a really disturbing misogynistic bent to all of it. I don't live in fear of them, but whether any of them would take it further is impossible to know. I understand Kathy Sierra's dilemma. Do you just assume that they won't take the sicko stuff offline? Of course, I assume the only reason men do this kind of thing is to make women fear saying what's on our minds. So, they win if we allow it to silence us at all. And the reason discussions here are reasonable is because I won't allow trolls to take over. That angers many of them and leads to the uglier actions sometimes. As you say, trolling is to the person (or the group), not to the idea. I love a mixture of ideas, but I don't run a site where anyone is going to come here and belittle others into silence. Sadly, a lot of trolls think they are expressing "opinions" through personal insults and don't seem to know the difference. They whine about me shutting them down because I don't agree with them, and that's just not true. I love intelligent dialogue and debate, but not personal attacks. And once they go down that road, I'll turn it back on them. It's always fun to listen to them whine about receiving what they just put out.

DonnaLadd

Apr 6 2007

would I be remiss in pointing out that its not just women who face this issue. Most men who are columnists, commentators, or radio/tv talk show hosts get their share of creeps on both sides of the spectrum that do similar things to what this writer experienced. Facts? Just ask Kim Wade sometimes about what has been directed at him. I've personally seen it.

Kingfish

Apr 6 2007

You're not remiss at all. Of course, everyone with an opinion attracts creeps. The problem here, though, is the extent the creeps will go with women, especially hiding behind made-up screen names, and that becomes clear when you compare the way they talk to men and the way they talk to women. That's what Joan's column was about. As you know, there is nothing wrong (and certainly nothing binary/smile) about realizing that something bad that happens to everyone can be worse toward a particular gender or race or other group. The violent tone of men who want to silence women (and gays) can be just horrifying.

DonnaLadd

Apr 6 2007

And Kim Wade is a special case. ;-) He is taking on a powerful machine, and that is its own burden.

DonnaLadd

Apr 6 2007

I'm talking about Kim in terms of before Melton was elected. When the city was run by Harvey, Louis, and their pals, Kim caught hell. On the air he was subjected to quite a bit of hate when he was on WMPR (correct me if I'm wrong about station). They would call him uncle tom, race traitor, said he was trying to enslave blacks and worse. And that was on the air. Not the letters, emails, and phone calls he would get. He's been threatened more than once.

Kingfish

Apr 6 2007

I think fark.com has been enough of an eye-opener for me regarding how men act when they don't have a face with the name. And Kingfish, you ARE right about both genders. And I have gotten hated emails from women, especially after the Love Issue. There's also the writer at feministing who was attacked about her "breasts" by another woman when she had her picture made with Clinton. I will say the anyonymous, hateful emails have been more consistent from men or more random and passionate for women. The ones I get from men seem like they are reading everything you write...just waiting for something to snipe at. My experience has been that the women respond, then either get to know you and become a reader, or respond and don't read again. I don't open some threads on fark because I know it will be the typical locker room talk. Signed, The fat baby killing lazy crazy bitch :P

emilyb

Apr 6 2007

However, getting hate mail and the like is nothing like this Columnist Blinded Read 2/3 of the way down. note: this is for the readers. I know Ms Ladd knows who this is and his story.

Kingfish

Apr 7 2007

What really angers me as a "Uber Geek" is that when postings of death threats are traced back to the ISP of origin then the ISP shields the user a little too much unless handed a court order. Anonymous access to the Internet as a whole will be cracked down one day by some government vehicle if people can not manage their behaviors online better.

wade G.

Apr 11 2007

Ah, one of my favorite columnists. Some real gems in this column, which is a series of replies to letters from readers. Last letter is hilarious. Paglia Rocks

Kingfish

Apr 11 2007