Pages

Jump to bottom

4 comments

1 jvic  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 1:55:54pm

Hi, Ice.

1. Instead of expressing my emotions, I’m going to talk about possible countermeasures. I’ll comment regarding abusive behavior in general rather than misogyny in particular.

2. I couldn’t agree less with PZ’s politics and am not thrilled about his personal style, but he is an intellectually honest scientist:

What’s also dismaying is that I once would have thought that people of my ideological stripe, you know, those all-inclusive egalitarian liberals and the rational, objective atheists, wouldn’t be guilty of such anti-woman attitudes. The other guys are the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing thugs, right? But no — read about Caroline Farrow, a more conservative Catholic blogger — she gets five sexually threatening emails a day! And of course the atheist community in general has experienced some turmoil in the last few months over the revelation that there are openly misogynistic creatures in our ranks.

It’s dismaying. I don’t know what to do, other than to personally reject the attitudes of the people who treat women as lesser beings.

IMHO little will change until the culture of the Web changes and people become willing to police their own side and declare Not in my name—in the teeth of the reaction that, Okay, my pals Joe and Joan may have gone a bit too far, but their hearts are in the right place: whereas those so-and-so’s over there are a lot worse and have it coming. Heaven knows I’m not immune to this tendency.

I value the option of online privacy and emphatically oppose any government effort to meddle with it. When a Web site requires me to supply my personal information in exchange for the privilege of participating, I assess the trade-off on a case-by-case basis.

3. As for abusive email, presumably filtering technology is, or soon will be, available. If the problem gets enough publicity, I expect entrepreneurs and open-source types to address it.

Afaik at the moment software filters for online comments primarily capture spam. I expect that, too, to improve.

2 Dancing along the light of day  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 5:28:23pm

Thanks for paging this. I think the net allows people to express their TRUE feelings, and there is a lot of misogyny in the world. The posters know it’s not right, but it is what they feel. And feel free to post in, anonymously.

3 Interesting Times  Tue, Nov 8, 2011 5:47:07pm
I’ve had other, nastier messages where I’ve been called a “bitch” and threatened with anal rape, for instance; it’s as if they are first metaphorically translating me into a female so they can then really degrade me thoroughly.

Of all the things PZ says in the article, this has perhaps the most disturbing implications (it also reminds me of the homophobic vitriol directed at Charles). When men seek the most effective way to degrade other men, they invariably choose a method with violent sexual overtones (e.g. anal rape with objects, forcing them to watch sexual violation of their wives or female relatives, etc)

And then you have that brutal and idiotic machismo mindset that thinks it doesn’t count as “gay” if you’re the one sexually penetrating the other.

PZ is right. What at first looks like male-on-male violence is actually a “translated” misogyny: female = weak, weak = female, so if the thing you want to violate isn’t already female, make it so.

4 iceweasel  Wed, Nov 9, 2011 6:27:18am

re: #3 publicityStunted

Of all the things PZ says in the article, this has perhaps the most disturbing implications (it also reminds me of the homophobic vitriol directed at Charles). When men seek the most effective way to degrade other men, they invariably choose a method with violent sexual overtones (e.g. anal rape with objects, forcing them to watch sexual violation of their wives or female relatives, etc)

And then you have that brutal and idiotic machismo mindset that thinks it doesn’t count as “gay” if you’re the one sexually penetrating the other.

PZ is right. What at first looks like male-on-male violence is actually a “translated” misogyny: female = weak, weak = female, so if the thing you want to violate isn’t already female, make it so.

Very well said— I completely agree with you.


This page has been archived.
Comments are closed.

Jump to top

Create a PageThis is the LGF Pages posting bookmarklet. To use it, drag this button to your browser's bookmark bar, and title it 'LGF Pages' (or whatever you like). Then browse to a site you want to post, select some text on the page to use for a quote, click the bookmarklet, and the Pages posting window will appear with the title, text, and any embedded video or audio files already filled in, ready to go.
Or... you can just click this button to open the Pages posting window right away.
Last updated: 2023-04-04 11:11 am PDT
LGF User's Guide RSS Feeds

Help support Little Green Footballs!

Subscribe now for ad-free access!Register and sign in to a free LGF account before subscribing, and your ad-free access will be automatically enabled.

Donate with
PayPal
Cash.app
Recent PagesClick to refresh
Why Did More Than 1,000 People Die After Police Subdued Them With Force That Isn’t Meant to Kill? An investigation led by The Associated Press has found that, over a decade, more than 1,000 people died after police subdued them through physical holds, stun guns, body blows and other force not intended to be lethal. More: Why ...
Cheechako
Yesterday
Views: 39 • Comments: 0 • Rating: 0
A Closer Look at the Eastman State Bar DecisionTaking a few minutes away from work things to read through the Eastman decision. As I'm sure many of you know, Eastman was my law school con law professor. I knew him pretty well because I was also running in ...
KGxvi
Yesterday
Views: 94 • Comments: 1 • Rating: 1