Comments on: Sexism on Reddit

By: elfwreck

elfwreck — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:47:18 +0000

It occurs to me that the proper response to “well played, sir!” may be “thank you, ma’am,” regardless of the username of the commenter.

By: Erika

Erika — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Oh, that O’Reilly site looks good, thanks. The only tech site I read regularly these days is stackoverflow, which seems to be mostly male but is suprisingly female-friendly (no snark yet on questions and answers posted with a female username, and I’ve seen misogyny voted down, not up), but it’s not exactly news, at least not directly.

By: Skud

Skud — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:31:45 +0000

I largely rely on twitter and/or links from http://radar.oreilly.com/ (Nat’s “Four links” posts in particular) and my work’s internal news mailing list where people send things of work-related interest.

By: Skud

Skud — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:58:14 +0000

Good idea :) I’ve been trying to convince Rat to be a guest blogger anyway and she keeps saying that all she’s good for is ranting. Rant on, I say!

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:44:43 +0000

WORD. Drops of water wear away solid rock.

Mods: could the above comment be promoted to a post?

By: This Week in Brief

This Week in Brief — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:50:41 +0000

[...] post over on Geek Feminism about sexism on social news sites. Please give it a [...]

By: Erika

Erika — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:26:08 +0000

Definitely. I don’t know of a place to get tech news that’s not served up with an occasional side of misogyny, and it definitely reduces my consumption of tech news.

By: Bene

Bene — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:33:55 +0000

Agreed–it’s a concern because it’s revealing of a greater and often hidden problem. When I see crap like that, it’s a reminder to look twice before assuming anything, that there’s a culture of misogyny, not just Bad People.

A reminder I wish I didn’t need, mind.

By: Laughingrat

Laughingrat — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:01:36 +0000

But is online misogyny a real cause for concern?

Yes.

Harassment is harassment. Creating an atmosphere full of dehumanization and threats is harassment. It keeps women offline or, if they are online, subdued. It keeps the focus off what women say and on their status, under a sexist dominant culture, as sexual receptacles. This is its intent. That is precisely what such behavior is meant to do.

Of course the jerkwad you quoted said his behavior has nothing to do with sexism, and of course his eleven million misogynist buddies would agree; part and parcel of sexism is pretending that sexism doesn’t exist. The pressure is on women 24/7, online and off, to sit down and shut up about this stuff, because a refusal to hold both individual misogynists and society as a whole responsible for this is precisely what preserves male privilege. And the men involved? You better believe they’re not going to be honest about their beliefs–but their real opinions of women come through crystal-clear despite their denials and refusals of responsibility.

I can’t believe we live in a time when Kathy Sierra was repeatedly subjected to the most base and vicious online harassment, and threatened with brutal sexual assault and violence against herself and her children simply for being a female blogger in the tech community, yet there’s actually still questions raised about whether misogyny on the internet is a problem. Yes, it’s a problem, and yes, it’s personal, because it personally affects every woman who encounters it. As your roundup of remarks shows, these ideas and behaviors are hardly extreme; they’re not random outliers, the behaviors and attitudes of a few mentally ill persons. On the contrary, they represent a sizeable norm.