{"id":9697,"date":"2011-11-14T19:33:47","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T00:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/watchwomanonthewall\/?p=9697"},"modified":"2011-11-14T19:33:47","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T00:33:47","slug":"women-bloggers-seek-to-fight-online-misogyny-critics-decry-threat-to-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/watchwomanonthewall\/2011\/11\/women-bloggers-seek-to-fight-online-misogyny-critics-decry-threat-to-free-speech.html","title":{"rendered":"Women bloggers seek to fight online misogyny, critics decry threat to free speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watchwoman<\/strong><\/span>: Before you leave a comment, please keep in mind, I did NOT<\/strong><\/span> write the following article and I am not prone to wanting the government to get involved in this issue by passing another law. \u00a0Here is what I will add to it though, \u00a0the worst I’ve been called is a \u00a0 “f-ckin’ \u00a0 c-nt \u00a0 b-tch.” \u00a0 I guess that qualifies as a\u00a0misogynistic\u00a0statement, tee hee. \u00a0\u00a0\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That was written by a so do mite. \u00a0So I guess so do mites can be\u00a0misogynists, as well as what liberals think all Republican\u00a0White Guys are. \u00a0Tee hee. \u00a0\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0One thing, please don’t include me in the category of \u00a0“feminist blogger.” \u00a0FYI: \u00a0I am not by any\u00a0stretch\u00a0of anyone’s farthest thought to either the left or right a feminist!!! \u00a0I am a Christian, Bible-believing woman, who loves my husband, my children, my LORD, my church, with all my heart and soul, that every other\u00a0feminine\u00a0woman who loves and enjoys doing all the things that being a married woman and mother entails. \u00a0 \u00a0In fact, I think feminists would consider me an example of their worst nightmare! \u00a0— \u00a0And glad to be so<\/span>!!! \u00a0\"\"\u00a0\u25ac Donna Calvin<\/strong><\/p>\n

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::~:~::<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Caroline May<\/a>\u00a0(Blogger)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"Taking a cue from Howard Beale, feminist bloggers are banging their keyboards to say \u201cI\u2019M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I\u2019M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Just what are these women so angry about? Misogyny. And not just any misogyny, but Internet misogyny that ends up in their email in-boxes, comment sections, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.<\/p>\n

While women decrying the hatred of women is nothing new, what is new is the number of women bloggers coming out of the woodwork to openly share their experiences of hurt in an effort to launch a campaign against online misogyny.<\/p>\n

\"\"The New Statesman\u2019s Helen Lewis-Hasteley recently brought together nine female bloggers to\u00a0recount<\/a>\u00a0their plight as victims of online hate. The women\u2019s complaints focus largely on being called mean things, from the traditional women insults (\u201cbitch,\u201d \u201cfat,\u201d \u201cugly\u201d) to those overtly sexual and violent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure what the solution to all this is, although I\u2019m beginning to wonder if it might be worth one or more of us having a go at taking a test case through the criminal justice system,\u201d wrote freelance writer Eleanor O\u2019Hagan, telling her tale to the New Statesman. \u201cIn the meantime though, I think it\u2019s imperative that women who write online continue to speak out about the abuse we\u2019re subjected to, and that we expose the Internet misogynists at every opportunity we get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis-Hasteley told The Daily Caller that people are generally unaware of just how much hatred women are subjected to online. While she advises female bloggers to try to find the motivation for the hate, she doesn\u2019t recommend engaging the haters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I wouldn\u2019t recommend is responding to individual attacks on email, or if a website is created about you, by trying to engage the abuser,\u201d Lewis-Hasteley noted. \u201cFrom everyone I\u2019ve spoken to, very few have had a good response, and in one case it led to an escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Blogger and comedienne Kate Smurthwaite told TheDC that expressions of hate against women are all too prevalent online, but if there is one upside at least it demonstrates just how \u201cwidespread\u201d the hate is.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cGermane Greer wrote many years ago that women have no idea how much men hate them. Well, thanks the Internet, now we do,\u201d Smurthwaite explained. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a problem that needs to be faced up to. Many schools already teach students about the history of ethnic minority communities and the ongoing battle to end racism. Women\u2019s history (herstory) should be compulsory for male and female students from an early age and young people should be encouraged to understand the issues that women still face in the home and the workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being from Great Britain, Lewis-Hasteley explained that they have laws against \u201chate speech\u201d which allow female bloggers to turn their negative comments into a criminal case. In the United States, however, no such remedy exists, so American women bloggers have to find other avenues to combat the hate.<\/p>\n

Feminist blogger Sady Doyle\u2019s suggestion to create an awareness raising hashtag \u2014 \u201cMenCallMeThings\u201d \u2014 took fire on Twitter at the beginning of last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cMisogynists don\u2019t like women,\u201d she\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0at her site, Tiger Beat Down. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how uniquely charming and witty and acquainted with various fine bourbons you are. Are you a woman? Then they don\u2019t like you. And they especially don\u2019t like you telling them what to do. By, for example, asking them to cut it out with the misogyny.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also is a\u00a0petition<\/a>, boasting over 189,230 signatures, calling for Twitter\u2019s peer, Facebook, to begin policing pages that promote sexual violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told TheDC that Facebook\u2019s mission is to increase openness and connectivity. The site, he said, prohibits content that advocates or could lead to violence or real world property damage, but allows for offensive and ignorant content in the name of openness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find many of these Pages to be ignorant, just as we may object to other statements made on Facebook and around the web, but we believe that people have the right to hold such opinions as long as they don\u2019t result in direct harm,\u201d Noyes told TheDC. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent considerable time internally developing and discussing our policies around offensive or controversial content and have also consulted numerous outside experts, inviting some of them to speak to our employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

The calls to eliminate online misogyny have not been without their critics, who note that the Internet is a place for open discussion of all things, even the most unsavory.<\/p>\n

\"\"Brendon O\u2019Neill, editor of\u00a0spiked-online.com<\/a>,\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0last week that the movement to \u201cStamp Out Misogyny Online\u201d should be opposed because it threatens free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who cares about freedom of speech should sit up and take notice when campaigners start talking about words and violence in the same breath, because to accept the idea that words are as damaging as violent actions is implicitly to invite the policing and curbing of speech by the powers that be,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

He went on to note: \u201cMuddying the historic philosophical distinction between words and actions, which has informed enlightened thinking for hundreds of years, is too high a price to pay just so some feminist bloggers can surf the web without having their delicate sensibilities riled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil libertarian Wendy Kaminer\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0at The Atlantic that she is also concerned that movements like this threaten free speech.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t believe that misogyny will be eliminated or significantly diminished by private suppression of misogynist online speech,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI worry that identifying problems of abusive speech inevitably builds support for repressive legal \u2018solutions.\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Kaminer added that, ironically, that women who speak out against misogyny demonstrate they actually haven\u2019t been silenced by it.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cAnd I shudder at nonsensical efforts to distinguish \u2018hate speech\u2019 from free speech; freedom for the speech you like would merely be redundant,\u201d she wrote. \u201cBut when women complain about speech they consider abusive or downright frightening, I have to say, welcome to the fray. You may mock them for complaining, but \u2018complaint\u2019 is just another word for protest. Besides, women who speak out against misogyny can\u2019t claim to have been silenced by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2011\/11\/14\/women-bloggers-seek-to-fight-online-misogyny-critics-decry-threat-to-free-speech\/#ixzz1dj6npqhB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watchwoman: Before you leave a comment, please keep in mind, I did NOT write the following article and I am not prone to wanting the government to get involved in this issue by passing another law. \u00a0Here is what I will add to it though, \u00a0the worst I’ve been called is a \u00a0 “f-ckin’ \u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":403,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1686,1474,7,249,344,1925,503,1502,355,1680,1184,2860,3411,429,596],"tags":[3532,9360,3530,3529,2093,3531],"class_list":["post-9697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment-rights","category-abuse-and-abusers","category-america","category-blog","category-bullying","category-character-assassination","category-free-speech","category-godlessness","category-hate-crimes","category-injustice","category-internet","category-prejudice","category-sexual-harassment","category-society","category-women","tag-bloggers","tag-free-speech","tag-misogynists","tag-misogyny","tag-name-calling","tag-on-line-hate-speech"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen bloggers seek to fight online misogyny, critics decry threat to free speech - 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