I saw this article in today’s Washington Post about female bloggers being threatened to such an extent that some have decided to stop blogging. Others have started using gender neutral online names.
Every so often there is a discussion on this site about whether people should post anonymously. The Washington Post article actually supports both sides of the argument. Anonymity provides protection for some women from online abuse, but it can also make it easier for people to be abusive.
I do not know what the answer is to this abuse problem. It would be a huge detriment to lively, interesting online debate if even some women are driven off line by abusive threats.
Please share widely!
Set aside politics, just for a moment, and consider this.
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When Ann Coulter or Laura Ingram are being revilled, how often has it been suggeted that it’s their ‘time’, or their views are hormonal?
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How often has it been suggested that a good lay would solve their problems?
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Compare them to personalities like Al Franken or Michael Moore.
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Comparing them, who do you think has a BETTER chance at sexual success?
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And when was the lst time you heard a male blogger dismissed as merely sexually frustrated?
Though, it is one of the things that bothers me about Bill Maher – he’s funny, and many of his commentaries are really apt and get to the heart of a matter, but he’s rather mysoginistic.
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I’ve always disliked Ingram and Coulter for their betrayal of women (vis a vis right to choose) and their stupidity. I have about the same rhetoric for them as for Rush.
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I also think you’re missing something here…Moore has been made fun of for his weight and worse, and both of them have been called traitors and worse. Rush has been called a drug-addled gasbag (I’m not sure if that’s a good example cuz it’s sorta true…and points out the hypocracy of his right wing lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key rhetoric, plus…he IS a gasbag…). So just because they are male, doesn’t mean they are not attacked unfairly for something, sex or otherwise.
What are some possible solutions? I’ll take a stab off the top of my head, but I honestly have more questions than answers.
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1) I think the Huffington post has the right idea from the article you linked:
The problem is not every site has the capacity to do this. Even on a relatively small site (compared to the national blogs) like this one it’s hard to contain trolls.
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2) That’s why it’s important for each site to have some sort of system or criteria by which they can judge whether someone is not only a troll but abusive. In the “triage” of “Who do you deal with/ban/warn, etc.” abusive posters, I assume for most if not all sites, come number 1.
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3) To what degree can the community self police? What are the boundaries, and when does the community need to bring in external help?
Now, I recognize that anonymity can give some women protection from abuse, but you’re much less likely to be abusing women online in the first place if you cannot be anonymous. Don’t you think? Or am I off base?
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Second, I don’t really understand the “free speech” argument. I’m quoting again: “Someone typed a comment on her blog about slitting her throat and ejaculating.” If somebody sent that as a letter to me, I don’t think there would be any question that it’s not a free speech issue. It’s a threat, and is not covered by the 1st Amendment, decency, or really any sense of humanity whatsoever. So can somebody explain why it is that posting it online — in a different medium — is somehow different?
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4) In that vain, is there a way to work with law enforcement or perhaps women’s resource centers? Certainly we can track at the very least IP addresses of abusive posters & find if there are repeats. Is there a way to be able to find out who is abusing the bloggers and deal with it as a harassment issue? Exactly what is the legal difference between threatening somebody online (and the examples in the WaPo are certainly threats) and threatening somebody through the mail, or some other means? I don’t see an ethical difference. Is there a way by which law enforcement could create an internet harassment division/branch or create that as a subset of their other anti-harassment mechanisms?
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I know there are a lot of things I’m missing, but I hope this comment at least sparks some discussion about what can be done.
By blogging, you set yourself up, to at least some degree, as a Public Personality. You do not enjoy the same level of protection legally as an exclusively private citizen.
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This is one of many reasons why the Electronic freedom Foundation (proud member and contributer) support the right to blog and comment anonymously, or at least pseudonomonously.
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I will continue to blog under a pseudonym, to at least show solidarity with Laurel! :~)
Public Personalities have a higher burden of proof with respect to slander and libel claims but get the same protections with regard to threats of violence.
so any help on that would be great, but I certainly hope that I can freely write what I’d like to on the blogs without giving up the same level of protection as a private citizen.
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Do the blogs constitute the public square? Isn’t this comment the equivalent of me getting on my little soapbox and giving a speech? That doesn’t make me a public personality, at least in how I commonly think of the public personality, it makes me a dude who gets on a soapbox. Perhaps I’m wrong. I’ve never taken a law class in my life, so it’s entirely possible.
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This is all a tangent. My real question is: how do we protect people online from harassment? What are the mechanisms in place to deal with this emerging problem? What new resources do we need?
“Now, I recognize that anonymity can give some women protection from abuse, but you’re much less likely to be abusing women online in the first place if you cannot be anonymous. Don’t you think? Or am I off base?”
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I think that if we really could know and verify every poster’s identity, you might have a case with that thought. But as far as I know, the blog editors don’t have the ability or the capacity to know the real identity or location of each user, and to verify that posters don’t allow unregistered people to use their account. Also, I’m sure every blog gets read by many more people than actually are registered as users. For a system of completely open identity to work, the blog would have to be closed to unregistered users. One could argue that the blog then ceases to be all a blog can be.
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n.b. i would point out that anonymity helps protect all users from abuse, not just women. I know this diary is about abuse aimed at women, but anyone can be targeted for abuse.
But what about my other questions? What can law enforcement/women’s resource centers or groups etc. do? What infrastructure do we have around now that can help on this issue?
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PS: Since the article’s focus was clearly on abuse aimed at women, that was my focus, I am aware that there are other targets, fwiw.
being neither a lawyer/law enforcer nor a blog owner, i don’t know how to answer your other questions, which are good ones. my sense is that threats should be taken seriously and dealt with via the police. however, i don’t know if this is a local police matter or federal, since the person sending threats might live next door, but the electronic messages might be routed even internationally. it wouldn’t surprise me that no one is sure yet. seems to me at the minimum we need to know three things:
1) what legally represents a law-breaking threat?
2) what kind of records does the threatened person need to keep?
3) who has jurisdiction for threats like this, and how does one report to them?
The last one is really important, since women are sometimes not taken seriously by authorities when they complain about threats or even when displaying effects of actual physical abuse. If threats via blogs and other internet fora are a relatively new phenomenon, some authorities may not know what to do with them and shrug them off. People need to decide who has jurisdiction, and set up a reporting mechanism.
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that’s my 2 cents. i hope someone in law and/or law enforcement will chime in with info and ideas.
“Where” is the internet? Suppose a threat happens over BMG. Suppose, for the sake of argument, the person being threatened and the person posting the threat live in MA and the threat is made while at a computer in MA. That would be MA police, no? But what if the poster of the threat lived in, say, Connecticut or Canada? Did the crime happen “in” MA? Or is it just where the server is located — which might not even be in the state any of the people are in!
there is a big problem in the blog world as in society in general that goes beyond actual threats of violence, but supports an atmosphere of discrimination and misogyny – insults based on being female or having female anatomy. Here are a few very recent examples from right here on BMG that come to mind.
Why the assumption that a grandmother would be ignorant? And the Dorcester part – racist/classist icing for the whole John Howard misogynistic, homophobic cake. Sometimes BMG really shines.
Douche, as in douche bag as in something a woman sometimes uses to rinse out the uterus = idiot or disgusting? The poster had an excellent point going there, but alienated me completely with the need to toss in a misogynistic slap.
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I blog under a pseudonym exactly for the purpose of protecting myself. Until men stop raping women and bashing queers both in actuality and euphemistically, I’ll continue blogging anonymously. BMG is better than many other places in its level of misogynestic crap, but why should I have to create any tolerance for it whatsoever?
Is “douche” a noun, describing the fresh smelling vinegar thingamajig, or the verb describing the use of said thingamajig?
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As a practical matter, isn’t possible to use said thingamajig in other potentially unfresh orifices- ones generally posessed by both sexes?
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I raise these possible defenses to the word because it is, as noted below, a very good word. Far better than “asswipe.” Also, it lends itself to sophmoric variations, such as “douchenozzle.”
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Wherefore, I seek removal of this word from the misogyny list.
so you would rather me tell you that sticking a douch up your ass is a possible occurrence, jsut so you can continue using a derrogetory term? UNBELIEVABLE!
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i think you can answer your own question for all of us by telling us all this: do you rinse your colon with a vinegar douche on a regular basis? are douches generally associated with male colonic cleansing? do us all a favor – walk down to the nearest bar, buy a round for the fellas, and ask them if vinegary colonic douching is something they do with regularity. ask them if they mainly do it to flush out stale semen, or just for general “freshness”. if you are still alive, please do report back to us on how “practical” your suggestion is, and how gender-neutral the term really is.
I respectfully decline your invitation.
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Writ denied, I see.
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Very well. “Arsewipe” it is. Maybe “asshat”.
I bequeathed
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I also called Noah Webster, a ‘vile, hairy, disease-laden drooler over cannibal bones’.
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Note that these are all lacking in mysogyny.
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Your plea on behalf of the Nozzle word reminds me of the great Randy Newman song, ‘You Can Leave your Hat On’. Newman wrote it at the height of the Tipper Gore no-swearing-on-lyrics policy, in order to prove that you didn’t need obscene words to wrtie an entirely filthy song.
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Dad – I have great confidence in you. You can insult and ridicule with the best without resorting to language that is crass at best. Really, it’s only the mark of lack of imagination.
Writ denied, 9-0. Scalia and Ginsburg share a tender moment; Thomas and Breyer high five.
what’s with this ‘writ denied’ stuff? no one is denying you anything. you are responsible for your word choices, not me or PP or anyone. you are free to continue loving and using misogynistic terms. have at it! but you will have only yourself to thank or to blame for the reaction they may incite.
The original comment was more tongue in cheek than anything. I guess only I thought so. I was seeking a mock “stay of execution” for the term.
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I have you and PP arrayed in opposition, and have accordingly retired from the field.
i am sorry to see that you do not realize in what poor taste it is to joke around about this. do you think we were discussing this just for fun? misogyny is rampant in our culture and is constantly reinforced with language. this is not a joke.
…”douche” here in Germany refers to taking a shower. You know, in a bathtub.
what has german bathing lingo to do with anything? if you were genuinely ignorant of the feminine hygiene definition and it’s misogynistic misuse before reading this diary, and are still ignorant of the situation after reading all the posts above, there is nothing i can do for you. do they have dictionaries in germany?
…a gay male, and I will let you know that I have no idea what a “douche bag” is. But this entire stream started by you misquoting tblade. He (or she) did not say “douche bag,” he (or she) said “douche.” You were the one who introduced the “bag” part into the discussion at Laurel @ Mon Apr 30, 2007 at 11:57:45 AM EDT
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Don’t manufacture controversies.
you claim to be completely ignorant of the terminology in question (beyond the german shower definition), but still go on to say that i misrepresented how another poster used it. HI-larious! are you an authority on all subjects about which you are ignorant, or just this one? 😉
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fyi what i said was “Douche, as in douche bag as in something a woman sometimes uses to rinse out the uterus = idiot or disgusting?” if that was misrepresenting the original poster, then the original poster could/would/should have corrected me. he didn’t. what does that tell you?
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now that i’ve had the last word, shall we drop this silly side spat? 😉
Laurel, calling me misogynistic and homophobic is slanderous, I’m a real person, and I’m not misogynistic or homophobic. I’m against genetic engineering, and that means I think we should say “Enough” at natural conception of a man and a woman and not allow any other methods. If you are saying that everyone that would be opposed to genetic engineering and same-sex conception is homophobic and misogynistic and slander them thus on line, well, that’s a blunt force tactic of intimidation and a threat, just like this post is about. It respects women more to see both sexes as equally necessary and involved in conception, rather than seeing women as rent-a-wombs for the gestation of Adam-Steve jr (how will they ever decide on a name??)
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As to the grandmothers in Dorchseter, I was actually thinking of real people I met distributing Kaguya flyers in Fields Corner and other neighborhoods nearby. I went all over the state, Springfield, Amherst, Brockton, Chelsea, Somerville, Charlestown, Medford, etc, 10,000 flyers all over, not just Harvard Square and Beacon Hill and Park Street, where I passed out the bulk of them. I got the warmest and most encouraging blessings in working class neighborhoods like Dorchester, usually from elderly black women I imagine were probably grandmothers. They would talk to me like they understood it better than I did, not about the genetics, but just about recognizing another example of crazy white people carrying on their Godless quest of creating that perfect human specimen. As the Last Poets said, “the white man’s got a God complex”. So Laurel, I was not making a Geico Caveman faux pas by insulting the intelligence of grandmothers in Dorchester at all. I’m saying, don’t trust the misanthropic oversocialized Harvard expert, trust regular people, especially grandmothers, especially black grandmothers, to know why it is unethical.
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But I am embarrassed that I resorted to such a hackneyed device to establish moral credibility, I guess I regurgitated the lesson from bad TV movies where whenever they need a reaction shot from the moral public, they use a black guy shaking his head, and they always cast an older black woman as a judge so we know she’s a good judge, not a bad corrupt judge. who’d be an old white guy. If I had just said “regular people” though, wouldn’t you think “dumb guys” with no ethical credibility?
…is where you wear your homophobia on your sleeve:
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You couldn’t even make your point about not being a homophobe without tossing in a silly gay joke.
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Sad.
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And it wasn’t homophobic. Adam and Steve are shorthand for a generic male couple, when you want the reader to picture a real couple in their head. Because people I think are thinking of this too abstractly. Picturing real couples makes people think about some of the issues that might come up. They will have trouble deciding on a name, no doubt they will feel it should be a smushed together version of both of their names, or maybe named after a shared idol. And the kid is going to have trouble deciding which of its fathers is the real father, the one he should identify with like other boys do. And he’ll have a couple grandmothers and maybe an aunt or two, but he won’t have a mother, not even to feel for inside himself. That isn’t misogynist?
…and Adam and Steve, for the record, is a homophobic reference, it comes from the infamous quote “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” The stuff about smushing names together and “real” fathers is just ridiculous hogwash. A shared idol…what the hell does that even mean? Your words were far less offensive when I thought they were a sad attempt at humor.
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It was homophobic and you are a bigot.*
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*Any third parties who would seek to entreat an apology from me for making this statement can save the time it takes to type the request. I stand firmly by my comment.
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You might want to consider an apology: it is one thing to debate on the merits and try to change minds. It is another to hurl personal insults: rarely changes anyone’s mind. Just a thought.
Haqving been beaten up by Laurel yesterday, I’ll defend the above post today.
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There was a thread a few weeks back in which JH was really given an opportunity to explain what the heck he is trying to do. I can’t find the link right now.
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Turns out he really wants to ban certain kinds of genetic engineering (so far, so good) and that his grand strategy for doing so is to gain momentum by applying the ban only to gays (whoa!). Why gays? Well, because they’re easy and nobody cares about them anyway.
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I don’t think the comment was offbase. This guy is an asshat.
I want to ban all kinds of genetic engineering for creating humans (and I’m against GMO plants and animals too). That leaves only heterosexual conception. The plan is to harness the marriage debate to actually achieve a ban on genetic engineering, which most activists think is not likely to happen. The ban wouldn’t apply only to gays, it would apply to anyone who attempts to create a person that is not the union of a man and a woman. Of course that means that the only couples affected by it would be same-sex couples, I can’t help that. But I can suggest that same-sex couples should be given civil unions that don’t grant conception rights and that that Congress recognize these civil unions as if they were marriages, while at the same time enacting the egg and sperm law and preserving marriage’s conception rights. No one else has proposed anything other than “let’s wait until the old people are dead”, and meanwhile lots of those old dying people are same-sex couples that could really use survivor benefits and equal protections.
You might want to consider apologizing for allowing rampant homophobia on BMG in the shape of John Howard’s diaries and posts. Seriously.
You immediately decided that I must be a homophobe troll who found some novel way to argue against same-sex marriage. The fact is stopping the Brave New World (or Gattaca, Abolition of Man, Enough, stopping eugenics, etc) has always been my concern. Stopping gay marriage is a necessary part of that, just as gay marriage is a necessary part of embedding genetic engineering as a right.
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If you were smart, you wouldn’t put all your eggs in the same-sex conception basket. It is not anti-gay to be against genetic engineering, being pro-gay doesn’t require supporting genetic engineering or same-sex conception.
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We should push for federal recognition of civil unions, because it is anti-gay to be against federal recognition of civil unions, or to hold that recognition up by insisting that same-sex conception be allowed. It is anti-gay to insist that same-sex conception must be allowed to happen, as if without that ability, same-sex couples are lacking something. It implies that same-sex couples are diseased.
“Conception rights” and marriage are not linked in any way. I get sooo, sooo tired of being relentlessly attacked by nonsensical homophobic asshats like John Howard. Enough.
I wasn’t going to weigh in on this, but… ducks
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Laurel, I am sensitive to your position and respect your opinion. I’ve kicked this idea around all day and I don’t think you’ve made your case that the pejorative “douche bag” is as horribly misogynistic as you make it out to be. That said, I am open minded and could be persuaded.
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I was thinking of an alternative. Perhaps I could have substituded douche bag with enema bag or colostomy bag. Although equally as scatological, douche seems less crass because it is more common in usage. So, then, is douche bag misogynisitic only because it the only one of the three that is female specific?
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I looked for definitions of the word and here is what I found.
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Wikipedia:
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**I don’t buy that wholesale and want to see more evidence.
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Oxford English Dictionary (the grand
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Oxford American Dictionary:
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In my defense, and this may be a weak defense, I’ve learned the term as a non-gender specific insult, and that is how I used it in my post. I didn’t know until you brought it up that in the past it was a gender specific insult. I also believe words can change meaning over time and I think the current accepted usage douche bag is non-gender specific.
Can we agree that such a word is vulgar? And when hurled at the head of a woman, who may remember the INITIAL definition and might feel unevolved, it would be seen as anti-female?
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I look forward as well to your analysis of PMS, Time of the Month, etc., and their new swinging meanings.
tblade, i second PP, and refer you to my response to CentralMassDad above about using whatever terminology you/he likes. i do give you the generational benefit of the doubt that you meant no harm in using the term, because your other many thoughtful comments on various subjects speak well for you. but PP is right, even if the meaning of a term may have shifted doesn’t mean that an older definition isn’t still in play and the one interpreted by older ears. also, be aware that older people using this term probably are using it to the fullness of its misogyny. i would be interested to hear the results of a poll of your female colleagues as to whether they feel a misogynistic tang when the term is used.
I accept your challenge and will poll my female friends – I honestly don’t know what to expect for a reaction. I’ve not given one thought until today about the gender implications of such a word. I will try to get an inter-generational mix, as most females I talk to are in their twenties.
Black people get to use the word and White people don’t. Does that supposed “double standard” upset you? Black people have been calling each other nigger in positive sense as a substitute for ‘brother’ and ‘friend’ for as long as White people have used the word. And that isn’t going to change over night.
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But, your deflection aside, I do not agree that douche bag is vulgar, at least not any more vulgar than ass wipe, that was the point I made above, and the second point I made above is that I am sensitive to Laurel’s position and have an open mind. If the only argument for douche being insulting is that it goes into a vagina rather than an anus, I’d like to flesh the argument out more before I agree to stop using it.
I am with PP and Laurel on that one. Now, asshat, that is so novel and innovative perhaps there is a case to be made.
…(“Nigger Jim” in Huck Finn, anyone?) What I do have problem with is loathsome uses of any words. There is a rather substantial difference. People can spew hatred and bigotry using four-syllable words that people have to go to the dictionary to translate.
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tblade, next time you might want to refer to an enema, instead of a douche. Although, as I have suggested, “douche” has various meanings, and one commenter decided to misquote you in a sexist manner, which led to the unnecessary controversy upstream.
It has been my understanding that making threats over wire was a federal crime. If that is true, why are those posing the threats not prosecuted?
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Every so often there is a discussion on this site about whether people should post anonymously.
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I comment using the handle “raj” because they are my initials, and I have used them ever since I have commented on-line, for over a decade. You know (the webmaster) where I am, but I am not going to publicise it over the Internet.
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Women should take similar care regarding protecting their identities. And I am very serious about that.
…there are numerous female dominated web sites. Pam’s house blend. Shakepeare’s sister. Pandagon. Obsidianwings. I could go on and on.
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What is the issue?
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Point one, don’t post an email address in a comment field if you’re a commenter. Point two, if you are a commenter, don’t give too much identifying information.
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Does this mean you’re going to stop CLAIMING I’m a woman now, Missy Raj?
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several months ago, you were identified on Ryan’s web site as being a female Republican apparatchick (yes, I know how to spell it correctly) and as far as I can tell, you have never denied it.
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I quite frankly don’t care whether you are a female, or a purple-people-eater. Are you embarrassed by the fact that someone refers to you by the honorific “Ms”? If so, why? Of course, I’m being sarcastic when I respond to you using that honorific, but, let’s understand something. Grow a thick skin*.
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BTW, I’m not going “back” to India any time soon, so don’t even go there.
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*If you notice I didn’t even refer to your “Missy Raj.” I had enough of that on FreeRepublic.com. When I first started posting on FreeRepublic.com, I learned more denigrating terms for gay men than I ever saw in my first 50 years of life. You people are even more inventive than I would have ever given you credit for.
I personally happen to know that PP is actually a truck driver, orginally from Queens, probably connected (if you know what I mean). Tatoo of “mother” on his right butt cheek. Anyway, he resettled to the Cape, rumor has it as part of a rum-running joint venture with him and one of the Kennedy elders. A falling out with the Kennedy kids after a “tell-all” book led to him joining the Republican Party. Combine that with an interest in the Revoltuion, and PRESTO, Peter Porkepine.
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Don’t know what an apparatchick is or who “you people” are but I hope I’ve been informative with the balance.
I am NEVER going to fall asleep during a budget again…..
And I suspect that you mean this in jest.
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But, if you don’t, let me ‘splain it all to you…
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Don’t know what an apparatchick is
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“Apparatchik” (note the spelling) is what was referred to as being a person who was an apparatus of a particular political party–notably the communist party in the USSR of old, but also elsewhere. I refer to Ms. Porc as being an Apparatchick (note the changed spelling, to reference her femaleness (“chick”)). I suspect that she understood the references, but if she didn’t, she does now.
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…or who “you people” are…
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“You people” are the people that the Republican party chose to align themselves with. But, one is known by the company one keeps. Ms. Porc is an apparatchick of a party that not only chose to align themselves with a bunch of haters, but actively sought them out.
Raj has no clue who I am. We have never communicated directly, nor do I wish to do so.
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Yet – Unlike Stomv, Afertig, Tblade, indeed, the original poster Open Society, and DOZENS of other Gender Neutral names – I alone am singled out for ‘feminization’, i.e., need not listen to, don’t bother with, etc.
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Raj is actually addressing one of the points of the article in his own perverse way.
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A women could become upset over this.
The point of posting the story was that women bloggers are being targeted for threats and harrassment in greater numbers than men.
I didn’t see any particularly convincing evidence that that was the case in the original article — just some anecdotal evidence of horrific (in my personal opinion criminal) abuse directed against some women bloggers. Is it possible to establish that, “women bloggers are being targeted for threats and harrassment in greater numbers than men,” I wonder.
The US doesn’t even bother to keep hate crime statistics, so I doubt the statistics you are looking for on internet-based threats is out there either. I hope someone proves me wrong.
The US doesn’t even bother to keep hate crime statistics…
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…if you go investigating in the FBI web site you will find several annual reports of hate crime statistics. I did so several years ago. The FBI gets the hate crime statistics from state and local law enforcement agencies, which the federal government cannot require them to collect or report to the FBI (federalism, you know), but the FBI reports are better than nothing.
I just have to say that when I posted this diary, I never expected it to result in a lively debate about the use of the word “douche.” But then, maybe I should have, given the topic of the post. That is why I love BMG.
During this discussion, I suggested that conservative women were treated worse then liberal women, although ALL women are treated badly.
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As empirical evidence, these are the current totals on my local paper’s question of the day about a spitited discussion about raping the Secretary of State and First Lady:
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A majority feel there shoudl be slim or no consequences fror speaking about women in this way. That’s more people than a Suffolk University poll.
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And I can’t help thinking that if the remarks had been about Dianne Patrick and Elizabeth Edwards, the results would have been very different.