211–220 of 375 posts
This is the sort of topic that shouldn't be allowed to have comments. People are far too reactionary to have a productive discussion.
So you are saying we must stop people from arguing the wrong positions?
I will admit this site is better than most. I've been accused of actually being a rapist in other discussions, amongst other indignities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An anonymous woman in tech is not the same as a woman publicly writing about her perspective on women in tech. Change "woman in tech" to something like support for/against gay marriage. I may have my own opinion, but once I voice it, I'm a target.
I don't think I agree with your premise, but even if I did... what's the point you're trying to make? That women would be safer if they never voice an opinion?
Maybe that's true (I don't think so), but like you said so what? It doesn't make it any better.
One thing that's often missed is that it's not only men making the death and rape threats - one of the people jailed for threats against Caroline Criadoperez was a woman. It'd be interesting to see what portion of the "troll"[1] population is women.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-trolls-is...
[1] giving in and using modern version.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny, for most things that you wrote, one could say the exact opposite, with equivalent validity. > You are making this comparison because you haven't fully thought things through. In your mind, death is worse than rape, but it doesn't automatically follow that receiving death threats is worse than receiving rape threats. But it's not so simple. > Death threats are significantly worse than rape threats, for a simila…
You seem to be missing the important part, where we are comparing death threats made against adult male sports players and rape threats made against women. Death threats against players are made as a way of voicing displeasure with the player's performance or the result of the game. The intent is to air frustration. Since competitive sports themselves are a way of bringing out the human primal side, being the target…
Why can't we get any sensible articles about this problem? Do they just not get any attention on aggregation sites? Call this "victim blaming" if you want, but I'm going to critique the article because it's bad. I'm not commenting on any of the surrounding events because, honestly, claiming you've been harassed in the past doesn't excuse bad journalism - She starts the article by alienating her intended audience: Lea…
Also, you want her to show examples, but if she leads with a strong one, she's writing "extremist hysteria"?
Insults are different when directed at a women than men, and the cause is not as simple as typing the word sexism. Insults, like swearing, is rooted in social norms. People use terms and concept which is understood by others in their social environment. This is why men will not get rape threat, since in most social groups, people think men can not get raped. It make no sense to threaten others with something that they do not think could happen in the first place.
People who send insults are expecting a predicted reaction (Remember several research papers making this specific statement). If a specific insult directed at a woman would not result in the same reaction as if it was directed at a man, then the insulter will change which words they use when insulting men. Which words they use has actually very small meaning given that they receive the expected reaction.
Rather then talking about how women get harassment and men do not, maybe we should talk about why the culture of insults are so personal and violent against women, and so focused on skill and ability for men. Why do not men get insults like "dam, you look ugly" and women get "don't quit your day job, you suck!". When was the last time you saw someone go up to female speaker and say "you do not understand this!", or loudly being argued with by someone in the audience over a technical detail.
Culture for male and female behavior is not identical when it comes to bad behavior. The article says: "I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker". The obvious reason is that female stalkers tend to focus on celebrities (small number of people), while male stalkers tend to focus on people they find in the local area. Stalking is bad, be that male or female stalker, and who they target is not same. Pretend that one do not exist because it is different is not going to make sexism less in society.
I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my…
It's whether or not your thoughts about Marissa Mayer stop at "Damn, she's hot" and don't acknowledge her (or any other woman) as anything other than pleasant set dressing for your life.
I'm a male in the software industry, and I never really know what to make of these sorts of articles. It's terrible that someone should have to go through this. The anonymity of the internet is a great and terrible thing -- some people really get off on being horrible to people, and unfortunately when that person is a male, and they know they're talking to a woman, the low-hanging fruit is base sexism. But what is su…
I think you need to stop reading things like this as "demonizing half of humanity." You being offended by an article like this is actually part of the problem, it results in silencing articles like this because some men don't like them, or don't feel like it applies to them. Personally, as a male who isn't nearly as terrible as many of the men in this article, I think these articles are important. It is worth reading…
EDIT: Direct quote from the article: "We live in a society that’s sexist in ways it doesn’t understand. One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women. I think it threatens them in a very primal way, and male privilege makes them feel free to lash out."
Anyone is justified at being offended by that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny, for most things that you wrote, one could say the exact opposite, with equivalent validity. > You are making this comparison because you haven't fully thought things through. In your mind, death is worse than rape, but it doesn't automatically follow that receiving death threats is worse than receiving rape threats. But it's not so simple. > Death threats are significantly worse than rape threats, for a simila…
You seem to be missing the important part, where we are comparing death threats made against adult male sports players and rape threats made against women. Death threats against players are made as a way of voicing displeasure with the player's performance or the result of the game. The intent is to air frustration. Since competitive sports themselves are a way of bringing out the human primal side, being the target…
You could easily say the same thing about violence/death/rape threats against people writing opinion pieces online (which is what this conversation is about): "Making threats when you disagree strongly with someone is perceived and treated as part of the culture (though it still sucks)".
> Rape threats against females are made as a way of mentally and emotionally damaging them.
I don't see how you can credibly conclude that when it happens to a sports player, "it happens all the time so it's nbd even though it sucks", but when it happens to an online writer who happens to be female, it's a much higher level of significance and is intended to mentally/emotionally damage them. I'm pretty sure that's the purpose of all violent threats? Seriously, how would one make a violent threat to anyone without expecting that it may mentally or emotionally damage them?
> women are targeted specifically due to their perceived weakness and inferiority.
This has to be a joke. Google "death threats twitter" and you'll see a billion examples of every person under the sun who's inspired ire on a large scale (for whatever reason). For fuck's sake the creator of FLAPPY BIRD got death threats. I think this whole culture of "take every Twitter loon's vioent threat as if it may be serious" is a good one in the name of prudence, but it's disgustingly hypocritical when people turn around and go "oh except for threatened sports figures, and except for threatened X and threatened Y, those are crappy but not that big a deal".
> I'm very disappointed by the down-votes. If people are disagreeing with what I'm saying then the situation is much more hopeless than the anecdotes in the article suggest.
You think the situation is hopeless because people don't agree with your very specific, intricately constructed apologia of death threats against public figures in sports?
I read articles like this, and I think to myself, "Damn, I'm glad I'm not one of those guys." Then every time I see a photo of Marissa Mayer, I think, "Damn, she's hot." And then I hate myself for making that my first thought instead of something more equal like, "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. But no, if it's a woman, my…
> ... "Damn, she's accomplished and brilliant" like I do when I see a photo of Robert Downey Jr or Idris Elba or Benedict Cumberbatch. That's weird. When I see them I think they are good (or at least interestingly) looking and have pleasant voices. I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best…
There's a couple things that probably rate a down vote in some people's minds:
- "I would never think of them as brilliant or accomplished (even though I know they are) because they do something I have no idea about. Just the same when I saw worlds best CEO, lawyer, window cleaner, bus driver, mercenary or whoever. I have no idea and I don't really care what it means to be brilliant and accomplished at those jobs. It might be horrible. It's just too alien for me."
This honestly is kind of a weird stance to take. You don't think about anyone in any way other than aesthetics (look and voice) if their life experience doesn't completely match your own?
- "I'm also sad that I see a geek that transitioned to management which is always a loss of a good brain."
This is:
a. Pretty insulting to anyone who has gone into management, which is, believe it or not, sometimes something that does involve your brain.
b. Especially problematic as writing off management, HR and other "soft" fields as not as important as engineering is a common way to sideline the women who do make it into tech companies, as they are somewhat more common in those areas.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on the recipient's emotional state, being called "fat" or "dorky" can be worse. There's simply no valid objective way to decide the equivalency or lack thereof.
Clearly my downvoters have never been insulted while suicidal
Especially as, for women, body shaming and rape threats often come hand in hand.