Jane Austen and the Rape-Threatening Men
The face that launched a thousand threatening tweets.
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So what sorts of things make some men so furious that they feel the need to send women they’ve never met literal death and rape threats on the internet? It doesn’t take much, apparently. A woman suggesting that it’s not such a good idea to hit on women in elevators at 4 AM. A woman making videos suggesting that there’s sexism in video games. A woman captured on video telling some men to shut the fuck up. A woman complaining about sexist jokes at a tech conference.
Add to this: a woman campaigning successfully to have Jane Austen’s face put on the Bank of England’s ten pound notes.
Over the past week, writer and activist Caroline Criado-Perez, who organized the campaign to get Austen memorialized on the bank note, has been harassed relentlessly on Twitter by assholes and misogynists and trolls for her efforts. Some of this harassment has taken the form of literal rape and death threats. One 21-year-old Manchester man was arrested and questioned in connection with the threats.
Similar threats and harassment were directed at noted British classics professor Mary Beard and female Members of Parliament.
Here’s a sadly typical example of one of the threatening comments sent to Criado-Perez from an account that Twitter temporarily banned — then reinstated.
And a more graphic example:
And some even more graphic threats directed at female MPs.
For many more examples of messages sent to Criado-Perez and others, see Catalina Hernández’ blog I Will Not Put Up With This: here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
And if you had any doubt about how little in the way of repercussion most of these harassers expected to get for their threatening tweets, some tweeted using what are presumably their real names. Here are some comments from one Ivan Garcia of San Diego, as collected by Hernández.
And here is his blog, where this fan of jazz, video games and threatening rape shares his poetry with the world.
The harassment obviously raises a lot of issues,most notably: Why the fuck does this keep happening? And: What’s the best way to deal with this sort of harassment — and these sorts of harassers?
Twitter has promised to add a “report abuse” button; some activists see this as a step in the right direction, while others worry that the “report abuse” button will be itself abused to shut down critics of harassment. Twitter’s record in dealing with harassers has not exactly been a great one; just ask Anita Sarkeesian.
British journalists and assorted bloggers have been trying to sort through some of these issues over the past few days. Here are some links to some of the more interesting pieces, from a variety of perspectives. (Well, I’m not including the pro-rape threat perspective.) Links aren’t necessarily endorsements.
First, for a little more background, see:
Twitter under fire after bank note campaigner is target of rape threats
Caroline Criado-Perez Twitter abuse case leads to arrest
And here are some posts and pieces looking at the issues:
A ‘report abuse’ button on Twitter will create more problems than it solves, by Sharon O’Dea
A button will not, alone, rid Twitter (or the wider world) of mysogyny and abuse. These are complex issues that will take more than a button to resolve. But ‘report abuse’ buttons have been known to be widely abused on other networks. ….
Introduction of a similar mechanism on Twitter ironically creates a whole new means by which trolls can abuse those they disagree with. The report abuse button could be used to silence campaigners, like Criado-Perez, by taking advantage of the automatic blocking and account closure such a feature typically offers. In that way, it could end up putting greater power in the trolls’ hands.
Why does it always come back to rape? by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett and Holly Baxter of the Vagenda Magazine, in the New Statesman
Rape is the popular choice when women become more visible than they apparently should be, and that’s because it’s easy. …. Whatever their opinion, however they conducted their arguments, however well-researched and nuanced their replies to criticism are, they’re women and male trolls could rape them and that’s what really matters. …
[Academic] Mary Beard got called a “dirty old slut” with a “disgusting vagina” just as [Member of Parliament] Stella Creasy was being tweeted “YOU BETTER WATCH YOUR BACK… I’M GONNA RAPE YOU AT 8PM AND PUT THE VIDEO ALL OVER THE INTERNET”. …
The message is that women’s vaginas are, literally, always up for grabs. If they’re young, the rape threats will come thick and fast; if they’re older, maybe the trolls will settle for insulting their vaginas and telling them that they were “sluts” in the past.
If Every Male Troll Took a Walk in Women’s Shoes, Would He Finally Feel Our Outrage? by Elizabeth Plank
Withstanding rape threats has become a right of passage for female writers or personalities, just as making them as become a right of passage for cowardly and anonymous misogynist trolls. If you’re a woman who happens to possess opinions, and write about feminist issues (god forbid!), chances are you will be violently trolled. … the issue is not that women receive more criticism than men, but rather that it comes in more violent and vitriolic forms. Men will be attacked for their opinion, whereas women will be threatened because they have opinions.
[O]ne study showed that female usernames in chat forums received 25 times more abuse than male ones. In an experiment conducted by the University of Maryland, researchers found that “Female usernames, on average, received 163 malicious private messages a day.” So all else equal, if you’re a woman online, you’re going to be on the receiving end of more hate.
I believe it. I get a lot of shit from misogynists for running this blog — and the occasional threat — but what I get is nothing compared to the harassment similarly controversial feminist bloggers who happen to be women have gotten.
What women-hating trolls really believe, by Emma Barnett
First troll up was Peter from Whitechapel. …
“She was asking for it,” he told me. According to this nitwit, if you campaign about issues such as keeping a woman on English banknotes, you should “expect to receive rape threats”. I delved further.
“If you put your head above the parapet, like she has, then you deserve this type of abuse. It’s what you get when you are a woman shouting about something,” Peter told me, starting to get a little irate. …
Then Gary from Birmingham decided to call in [and] told me in no uncertain terms that “feminists like Caroline were undermining what it is to be a man” and needed “sorting out”.
“Men are predators,” he explained calmly. “And this [rape threats] is what we do.”
And here, after all this awfulness, is a piece that manages to be funny about it all: How to use the internet without being a total loser.
Posted on July 31, 2013, in actual activism, advocacy of violence, all about the menz, antifeminism, harassment, hate, men who should not ever be with women ever, misogyny, no girls allowed, oppressed white men, rape culture, rape jokes, sexual harassment, threats, twitter and tagged Caroline Criado-Perez, harassment, misogyny, rape culture, rape jokes, rape threats, twitter, twitter harassment. Bookmark the permalink. 1,018 Comments.
This is where you are childishly wrong, and it’s a sign of sloppy thinking/impending doom–not every opinion deserves airtime, or careful consideration.
Wow, there’s a lot of projection going on here. How on earth am I saying rape or rape culture is okay when I have repeatedly stated people who make such threats should be exposed and punished?
My only point is people shouldn’t live in unnecessary fear. It is counterproductive, and what the trolls want.
Quark: titianblue’s not wrong. I keep expecting you to whip out a handy list of how to stay safe on the internet.
They mostly come out at night… Mostly.
I’ve got an earth shatteringly simple solution to twitter trolls. If you don’t like twitter’s anti-harrassment policies……DON’T USE TWITTER!!!! That’s it . That is all that needs to be done. If you don’t want to see display bins full of dildo’s, don’t walk into a porn store. If you don’t want to see childish bickering and bad GIF’s, don’t go to 4chan. If there is something you don’t like the first option is always DON”T GO THERE. It’s not like twitter feeds are unavoidable like billboards and grocery stores.
Oh, if only I could invoke the patience of Reza Aslan…
Quark: It really is a matter of your post being something we’ve encountered a few too-many-to-counts before–an instruction to the victim on how they should feel, rather than an instruction to the culprit on how to behave. Blanket assertions tend to overlook individual circumstances that mean that a flippant, “Most of the time, you’re perfectly safe” isn’t really very helpful or useful. Insisting on harping on it, in turn, comes across as an effort to derail the overall discussion.
If an individual of your acquaintance was being harassed, and asked your opinion on the matter, then it would be appropriate to say, “Well, I know these asshats are shit, but really, I doubt you’re in any danger, because the vast majority of these slugs would wither and die if they got exposed to sunlight,” that’s totally cool. But coming in and throwing down that that’s how all victims should react is denying their right to agency, and that’s why you’re getting the very strong pushback you are–that’s not something taken kindly around these parts, which you really should know if you’ve read even a tenth of what you’ve claimed.
No, gender neutral dude, people should feel comfortable using one of the biggest social media sites on the planet without worrying about rape threats. Try again.
If you don’t like potholes, DON’T DRIVE ANYWHERE!!!
So now we’ve got:
Don’t take threats seriously
Don’t go on Twitter
The trolls are writing the list for us. Internet safety at last!!!*
*all the sarcasm, Quark’s favorite dish.
Strike that “biggest” from my last comment. People should be able to express themselves on the Internet, period, and “if you don’t like harassment don’t use the Internet” is not an okay solution.
GNL: Eh, nope. I’m fully within my rights to push Twitter to change their policies, just as I did with Kickstarter and Facebook. If they labeled their service, “Harassment Channel”, then I’d probably just avoid them, yes. But they are specifically advertising themselves as a general social media outlet meant to facilitate light communication; this does not necessitate harassment, nor the current non-approach to it.
Hey Quark, let me tell you about a thing that happened to me in meatspace, specifically, something that happened to me when I lived in the dorm at university.
Some asshat left a note on my door. It read, “Meet us in the stadium tonight at midnight with $1,000,000, or we’ll kill you.” Someone left this actual, physical, threatening note on my door.
I didn’t think it was serious. I was pretty sure it was a joke. But it was still a death threat, and it made me very uncomfortable. I reported it to the RA. It took a week for me to badger her into reporting it to the building manager. It took my going to see the building manager in person more than once to get them to even look into this death threat that was left on my door, because it “wasn’t serious.”
Eventually, after a few weeks, they figured out that a freshman on the floor above me, who I had never spoken to, who at this early point in the semester had several rules violations already, had left the note. They told me that, “since he was young and new to university life,” they weren’t going to give him any serious punishment. No punishment for a death threat. He was supposed to come apologize to me, that was it.
He never even did so much as that. I complained, and they said, “Oh, well it was just an apology, it’s no big deal, just get on with your life.”
You know, I knew it was a joke, but to me, threats on my life or physical safety are never really a joke. I like my life. I like being as safe as I can. And I never really felt safe in that dorm again, because I knew that the people running it didn’t give a shit about my safety. Oh, and for the record, this all happened at Virginia Tech, which of all the schools in the States, you’d think would take death threats seriously.
So fuck you and your “it’s not serious, it’s not real, no one’s going to actually hurt you.” Fuck you and your denial of the harm that death and rape threats cause. It is fucking scary to have your safety threatened like that, even by some idiot freshman kid who’s “just joking.” He’s joking like that because society doesn’t give a crap, because society thinks it’s fine to make those “jokes,” and society won’t go so far as to even give the people who make them a slap on the wrist. And you know what? It’s that societal attitude that contributes to the lack of value assigned to women. It’s that “boys will be boys attitude” that you and society have that encourages and protects those who choose to victimize others. So really, go fuck yourself, Quark.
If you don’t like racism, AVOID WHITE PEOPLE ENTIRELY!!!
If you don’t want to catch STIs, NEVER HAVE CONTACT WITH ANOTHER HUMAN BEING!!!
genderneutrallanguage is so wise.
@fremage – I’m not saying anyone should or shouldn’t feel a certain way, and I fully acknowledge internet threats ARE scary and unpleasant. What I’m stating is simply a fact that I suspect not everyone is aware of which can add unnecessary stress and distress to the situation – the real-life danger threat is very, very small. Shouldn’t people know that? Would you rather they had a grossly distorted impression of how much danger they were in?
And frankly, Mr Futrelle could look up my IP address and see I’ve been a regular site visitor for a long time, so your insinuation I haven’t read what I’ve claimed is baseless.
I have seen before newcomers getting an unnecessarily hostile reception and told “you haven’t been coming here long enough to have an opinion so shut up”, which I think is completely inappropriate and rude in any case, but in mine, simply not true.
I know this is an emotional argument, rather than a logical one. However, if someone sent me 50 messages an hour for over two days on how they were going to rape and murder me then I think I would begin shaking. It would be terrifying just logging onto your account. I understand that they are unlikely to follow through on the threat but I would still feel shaken, unwelcome and helpless. I understand that this is how the trolls would want me to feel, so they would have won but I’m not sure that would make me strong enough to cope with it. What do we have to put up with to stop someone else from winning?
This is the only reason I will delete things as soon as they offend someone, even if I consider them reasonable things to say (I retweeted a link from a major newspaper asking for interviews with feminist men which really upset someone on my twitter feed for obvious reasons). I know this is not logical but sometimes I just think fuck logic. It is better to be emotionally safe.
I think it can be reassuring to let people being harassed know they have nothing to fear but in the end fear is a standard emotional response to a large number of threats. I don’t think it is fair to dismiss that.
But I am being both silly and sarcastic here, which Quark has told us is unacceptable behavior on this blog. I’m sure David will be along with his banhammer any minute now. It’s been nice knowing you all.
I really hate it when folks try to posit harassment as something that “just happens” and not a conscious decision made by another to hurt someone. Dildos would be part of an adult store. Rape threats are not a feature of Twitter.
Yes, well those newcomers stepped in some shit, just like you. Learn from them.
cloudiah: I’ll be seeing you in the Sarcasm Time Out Corner. I’ll bring a nice red.
“So really, go fuck yourself Quark”.
This is getting seriously unpleasant and quite close to the kind of aggressive, horrible behaviour you rightly object to.
Ooh, hellkell, can we try on lipsticks? I never know how to pick good shades. :D
So the vibe I’m getting from Quark is that she enjoys debate enough to make a normal conversation a win/lose scenario and wouldn’t be happy without a winner or loser declared.
Do you know what that pretty well prevents? People opening up to you in an honest way and telling you their experiences, knowing that they won’t be judged.
Without that, I’d have to say that OF COURSE you haven’t heard of escalations, or probably even of people you know being raped or abused. That you then extrapolate from there and are certain that it “almost” never happens tells us alot about you, but nothing about the world at large. That you think that we should bow to your anecdata and have a serious debate with you on a blog set up for mockery is also very strange.
I disbelieve that you have read and *understood* the tone of the 50-100 threads you claim to have read. If you read them at all I think that you read them and wanted to fight with people’s comments and were sad that they were old threads so you came to the current thread to be argumentative.
You also keep talking about your rights here, and I’m sure that I don’t need to point out that there are actually very few rights on the internet. Priviledges yes, but rights?
And appaerntly I switched the subject I was talking to mid-way through my last post… whoops!
“I really hate it when folks try to posit harassment as something that “just happens” and not a conscious decision made by another to hurt someone. Dildos would be part of an adult store. Rape threats are not a feature of Twitter.”
Yeah. This.
Oooh, can I visit and join in the lipstick trying on? I’m so bad at that!
@ Kate – hypocrisy. You SHOULD have rights on the internet, such as the right not to be threatened/attacked/abused. This is exactly what is being discussed.
Or is not being abused a “privilege” – ?
Wah wah, Quark is sad that we use mean naughty language towards people we don’t like. You know what, Quark? Personally, I don’t object to people being told to fuck off, especially when, like you, they really ought to fuck off. You know what I object to? To rape threats and death threats and apologists for the assholes who make them. Like you!
So again, please do us all a favor and GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Quark, please be inventive, or at least funny.
And what we are stating is the simple fact that your assertion is pointless and not in any way germane to the discussion at hand, which is regarding the extremely disproportionate response that women in public tend to receive simply for existing as female in the world.
At this point, your insistence on repeating this irrelevant statement appears as though you are purposely derailing this thread. THAT is why newcomers receive a hostile reception, and such a reception is in fact quite necessary for people who stomp into a thread to derail the conversation.
cloudiah: we can try on lipsticks, I’ll even bring nail polish and we can make it a slumber party.
I think I see what Quark’s problem is, she’s a Chill Girl. Death threats don’t upset her, so why all the fuss? Someday she’ll realize being Chill is a lot of effort for little payoff.
But her “you’re mean” tantrums are cute.
Trigger warning!
Everyone knows that people who make threats never carry them out.
That’s why you should just ignore threats.
Quark, regardless of your gender, you are doing a wicked job of mansplaining why we need not worry our pretty little heads about online threats. Please stop. You being told you were missing the point was not sarcasm, and it was not an attack. It was the truth. You have missed the point of the discussion trying to be had here. Furthermore, I don’t care what you choose to feel. I care that you are telling me what to feel. When threatened, I not only feel in danger, I AM in danger. That shit is DANGEROUS to my mental health, my sense of self, my ability to participate equally etc. Please stop saying online threats are not dangerous. At least stop saying it here because you are invalidating the lived experiences of many, many people. You have made your point, and many of us disagree. And that’s real.
tooimpureangel: you’re more than welcome to join us in shame and lipsticks.
@tooimpureangel, Absolutely, come on along!
I haven’t “stomped into a thread”, I’ve just stated my opinion, which you disagree with, which is fine.
You all object to aggressive, horrible, nasty comments on the internet? Why don’t you all take a long, hard look at yourselves?
I’m not intentionally trying to offend anyone, yet many of you are intentionally trying to insult and attack me and openly state you wish to intimidate and attack me until I “fuck off”.
Really. Take a look at yourselves.
hellkell, Let’s start a blog called Shame and Lipstick.
Cloudiah & hellkell, can I come to the slumber party too? My favorite lipstick just broke off at the base and I am in need of makeup-based solace.
cloudiah: that’s not a bad idea.
I can’t help but compare my reception as a newbie to Quark’s…
@CL – uh-huh, and what about the effect on me of all the unpleasantness I’m getting in this thread? Do people’s feelings only matter when they agree with you?
dustydeste: please join us!
I’m really sorry VA Tech did nothing for you–you’re right about thinking that that school would be hypervigilant about student safety.
Quark: I can only speak for myself, but I don’t give a rat’s tiny ass about your feelings right now. Fuck off.
@ hellkell – Wow. You don’t see even the tiniest bit of rank hypocrisy in that statement?
@quark – my comments were directly targetted at your earlier statement that you had the right to reply to people. Sure you do, but not necessarily here. This is Mr. Futrelle’s virtual livingroom, not yours.
Go rant somewhere else, it seems to have escaped your notice that people would rather have a different conversation today.
Yeah, I’m not seeing the distance here. Not all sarcasm is satirical, but satire relies heavily on sarcasm. Straight-faced statements or question to ironically highlight the absurd or immoral is sarcasm.
I simply don’t see rudeness or dismissiveness by itself as harassment or discrimination, even though it can be used in such a way.
IMO: The host sets the rules of engagement.
If I go to your house, you can be as rude, sarcastic, mocking and dismissive as you want; you’re not harassing me. If you tell me to leave, but I stay, then no matter how polite I am, I’M the harasser. The flip side, if you come into my zone, I’m under no obligation to be polite. If you disengage and I continue to follow you with rudeness, then I become the harasser.
Elsewhere, the host sets the rules for tone. Unless Twitter wants to be the sole domain of unaccountable shitlords, they’ll make these changes.
Christ, I don’t even have words for how completely stupid what you’re saying is. We object to death and rape threats on the internet. I highly doubt you’ll find anyone here who objects to calling people things like wrong, poorly-informed asshats, which is what you are, btw.
If you think that being told to fuck off is the same as being threatened with murder or rape, you need to sit down and have a good long think about your life. Also you should go fuck off.
Quark: please stop with the pearl-clutching and boo-hooing and just admit you came to start shit. Didn’t quite work the way you planned–you say you’ve read this place, but you didn’t read the room–too bad, so sad.
@ Kate – I’m not ranting, I am expressing an opinion and have at no point intended to offend or upset anyone with it. And as Mr Futrelle hasn’t banned me, I clearly have just as much right to reply here as you do.
I know I’m not a regular, but I have an awesome nail-polish stamping kit and gel polishes… can I join the slumber party too? (I even have thermodynamic gel polishes… they change based on the temperature! I love them sooo much!)
@ Hellkell, what nonsense. Just read my first comment (first on the thread), and it is abundantly obvious I did not come here just to “start shit”.
Quark: there’s no hypocrisy. You’re not getting death threats here.
Even if you were, they don’t bother you, remember? I guess it’s just that we’re not falling all over you and telling you how right you are that bothers you.
hellkell: Yay slumberparty! I’ll bring the sparkly pink girly wine :D
Oooh, Kate, those polishes sound so cool! I had some at one point that changed color in sunlight, but it was yeeeeaaaarrrrs ago now…
Kate: please join! Those nail things sound awesome.
thermodynamic gel polishes…I have never heard of this! Yay, Google! Sounds awesome.
So let’s get this straight:
Someone comes here to state an opinion and has absolutely no desire to offend or upset anyone with it.
Other people disagree with that opinion, so that person is bullied, attacked, sworn at and generally harassed until they leave.
Got it.
I’m about to get BINGO off all Quark’s responses.
@Quark, I totally agree with Freemage, and I think your response to zir missed the point and was factually incorrect. I do think that the vast majority of people out there, especially public figures (even if it’s a relatively anonymous public figure like a blogger), are well aware that the vast majority of internet threats will not be followed up on. You aren’t providing a necessary PSA here, as a brief reading of women who have been threatened like this will show you.
But when you’re getting literally hundreds of rape and death threats in graphic detail, it’s hard not to be shaken. It’s even harder when you consider that even if 99% of these threats would never be followed up on, you’ve gotten (say) 600 threats…that leaves you with 6 people to worry about. Or maybe they’d never follow up on them in a public place, but what if you run into them alone at a conference? Or…?
Yes, the odds of being harmed by someone who threatens you publicly are small, but they’re there. But more importantly, the whole argument misses the point, which is that these threats are specifically designed to frighten women out of voicing their opinions publicly, and often succeed *even with women who know that the actual physical threat is relatively small.* The psychological damage is both the point and the problem here, not the actual physical threat.
As Freemage said, I would say exactly what you are saying if a friend came to me with these problems and asked for advice. I’d advise her to take reasonable practical precautions but not live in fear, because she probably won’t be harmed. But that’s a vastly different situation than posting a vague PSA-style announcement like you did here, which manages to both imply that women are ignorant of the actual risk (or worse, incapable of logically assessing it) and that this isn’t really a significant problem. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way, but it certainly came across that way to me and obviously to many others here. And FWIW, I recognize you from other threads and am not predisposed to think you’re a troll. I think you’ve just wildly missed the mark here.
@ hellkell – Er, no. I enjoy debate and like to hear alternate perspectives. What I don’t like is verbal abuse, being sworn at, belittled, attacked etc.
And amazingly, even abuse that is “not as bad as a death threat” is still unpleasant and still has a bad effect! Imagine that!
Quark, your behavior is itself dangerous and boundary trampling. I can see how being called on it is unpleasant for you, but that is not the same thing as being threatened.
Gel II Reaction is the colour change ones, and I just popped to the website (to get the name) and apparently they’ve re-mixed it with sparkles! Wheee…
http://www.geltwo.com/
Hellkell — don’t you see the hypocrisy in telling someone to fuck off while condemning rape and death threats?!
I’ll bring the nail polish, I have a bunch I’ll never use but idk how good it is, a lot of it is a decade~ old.
“And amazingly, even abuse that is “not as bad as a death threat” is still unpleasant and still has a bad effect! Imagine that!”
So, we’ve managed to change your mind about your original opinion?
Quark: then step back and stop doubling down on your bullshit. You’ve earned your welcome.
Quark, you have “at no point intended to offend”? Can human beings actually die laughing, because I might be about to.
@AK – that was a very eloquent and balanced post, and I entirely understand your point of view, as well as your criticism of mine.
Thank you, and thank you for not stooping to insults and swear words. I appreciate it.
Quark: See, this is why we keep suggesting that reading comprehension is not your thing. None of us are against ‘aggressive, horrible, nasty comments on the internet’. (I’d suggest that none of what you’ve gotten would qualify as ‘nasty’ by any stretch of the English language, but that’s a minor part of it.)
What we’re against are threats, both direct and by implication, being leveled at anyone, in any medium. “Fuck yourself,” “fuck off” and the like are not threats, not in any permutation or environment. They are merely statements of contempt and derision, which some of us feel you’ve been working very, very hard in this thread to earn.
Aregnti- was that sarcasm?
We can put some acetone in the old polish and see how it’s held up.
Hey Quark, guess what, you’re not entitled to respect for your bad opinions. If you don’t like it here, GO AWAY. In fact, I think we’d all feel you did us a favor if you did exactly that.
Oh what’s this? Things can be not as bad as a death threat and still hurt your tender little feelings? Well then guess what, asshat, maybe we can talk about how death threats are problematic without you derailing and saying how we all have out panties in a bunch over nothing. Also you can please go fuck yourself.