Laurie Penny: A woman's opinion is the mini-skirt of the internet

[redqueen]

I can't stand being told there's nothing we can do about this. That it's something we should just expect and ignore. I won't ever accept that.

For criticising neo-liberal economic policymaking, it was suggested I should be made to fellate a row of bankers

...

The implication that a woman must be sexually appealing to be taken seriously as a thinker did not start with the internet: it's a charge that has been used to shame and dismiss women's ideas since long before Mary Wollestonecraft was called "a hyena in petticoats". The internet, however, makes it easier for boys in lonely bedrooms to become bullies. It's not only journalists, bloggers and activists who are targeted. Businesswomen, women who play games online and schoolgirls who post video-diaries on YouTube have all been subject to campaigns of intimidation designed to drive them off the internet, by people who seem to believe that the only use a woman should make of modern technology is to show her breasts to the world for a fee.

Like many others, I have also received more direct threats, like the men who hunted down and threatened to publish old photographs of me which are relevant to my work only if one believes that any budding feminist journalist should remain entirely sober, fully clothed and completely vertical for the entirety of her first year of university. Efforts, too, were made to track down and harass my family, including my two school-age sisters. After one particular round of rape threats, including the suggestion that, for criticising neoliberal economic policymaking, I should be made to fellate a row of bankers at knifepoint, I was informed that people were searching for my home address. I could go on.

I'd like to say that none of this bothered me – to be one of those women who are strong enough to brush off the abuse, which is always the advice given by people who don't believe bullies and bigots can be fought. Sometimes I feel that speaking about the strength it takes just to turn on the computer, or how I've been afraid to leave my house, is an admission of weakness. Fear that it's somehow your fault for not being strong enough is, of course, what allows abusers to continue to abuse.

I believe the time for silence is over. If we want to build a truly fair and vibrant community of political debate and social exchange, online and offline, it's not enough to ignore harassment of women, LGBT people or people of colour who dare to have opinions. Free speech means being free to use technology and participate in public life without fear of abuse – and if the only people who can do so are white, straight men, the internet is not as free as we'd like to believe.

more at link

[seabeyond]

1. speak it ... sistah. i am a believer.

on one thread, what stopped the insults in their track was me saying

i have a right to challenge sexism, and i will.... each. and. every. time.

who is going to argue with free speech.

[redqueen]

2. People who think that 'free speech' includes their right to denigrate women...

whether by mocking their sexuality (see the thread about Lohan's nipple ring for a current example), promoting their objectification, or whatever method they personally enjoy.

[seabeyond]

3. yes... and when i say soemthing, i "amuse" the men. cute. nt

[iverglas]

4. just a few words of encouragement ...

Not really for the author, who probably doesn't need them. ;)

Just do it. Stand up and do it. Turn that computer on (even if you take a day or a few day to go back to what you were afraid to look at). And speak up.

I'll bet nobody here could guess what a wimp I was on line 15 years ago. Well, probably not a wimp by most standards in my visible behaviour. ;) But I definitely did have that sinking feeling about turning on the computer. I occasionally do now.

When I do now, it's if I'm afraid I've got in over my head and might not be able to back myself up. But hey, when you're right, you're right (and when it comes to things like the right to choose, say, you're just right), so it's a matter of doing the work you need to do, to show the world you're right.

Some of that means getting good at spotting the dirty tricks played by the people who are wrong. All the word-twisting and game-playing they excel at. You never let them get away with it. You know there's something just not quite right in what they're saying, so you nail it down and go after it.

And basically you just make sure you know you're on the side of right and you are right. Don't let yourself forget it.

And the more you stand up to them, the more you don't let them get away with their shit, the better you get at it. I sit before you at my keyboard as living proof. ;) And the better you feel about yourself, as a side benefit. You're smart and strong and good and you're right, and you know it.

But you gotta get good at it, and it does take work. You do need to develop a stock of knowledge and resources, and you need to practise. No whining, no vague claims you can't back up, and definitely never getting tricked into anything.

Not many of us venture to places where we'll have the kinds of things said to us that Penny experiences. That's a whole nother level from the kinds of things we see and experience here, for instance. But ... maybe if there's an army of us standing up all over ...

I do my little bit from time to time in the guns forum here. ;) We're discussing women resisting rape at the moment; anybody who wanted to join in would get a good dose of everything I'm talking about here, and good practise at all the skills you need for, uh, resisting. :evilgrin: