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.
@ CL – when did I ever say internet abuse was not unpleasant? Can you please stop misrepresenting what I actually said?
I have said endlessly it is a terrible thing and people who engage in it should be exposed and stopped.
Incidentally, that applies to all the people who have been aggressive and unpleasant to me. Would they behave this way in real life or under their real names? Not a chance.
Quark: apparently you missed this in your in-depth MBZ studies*: just because a person isn’t swearing, it doesn’t mean they aren’t saying something awful. Like you, my dear.
*more of Q’s fave
Quark: I guarantee you that if we were face-to-face, I would have told you to fuck off at this point.
@ dusty – I never said any of the things you’re ascribing to me, and you are now using EXACTLY THE SAME bully-justifying logic you earlier decried. “If you don’t like being attacked, don’t use the internet”.
I cannot believe the astonishing hypocrisy or that none of you, apparently, can see it.
@Quark, frankly, I don’t appreciate being used to make a point to other posters. I wrote that since you claimed to be interested in actual debate. Your response seemed less directed at me (considering it didn’t actually address any of the criticisms I made) than composed to contrast my response to the other ones you have received, and which I don’t disagree with.
@ hellkell – easy to say, but would you reveal your real name here? Course not.
And yet you continue to assert that if we just UNDERSTOOD it a little better, and accepted that we are not in any PHYSICAL danger it wouldn’t be such a big deal. If you feel you are being that drastically misunderstood, maybe work on your argument a little bit.
Also, WHOOP WHOOP TONE POLICE.
“Incidentally, that applies to all the people who have been aggressive and unpleasant to me. Would they behave this way in real life or under their real names? Not a chance.”
Oh this again? Yes, yes I would, I have a spring loaded middle finger.
Hellkell — yep! I’m a horrible person! Why is pecunium at work when I want a good sarcastic banter?!
Ak – you are not being “used”, you were being “thanked”. There is quite a difference. I genuinely did appreciate your politeness.
Quark: that’s not quite the gotcha you think it is.
You say you’re not a troll, but you’ve managed to hit all the high notes of one so far. I don’t think you’re here in good faith.
David knows my real name, and so do a few others that I trust here. I don’t trust you, Quark.
Argent–I’m a little slow today, I’ve succumbed to the crud going around work.
I simply do not understand why you couldn’t all state your disagreements without resorting to attacks and swearing. That is inexplicable to me. And it’s hypocritical, whether you can see that or admit it or not.
My real name is Slartibartfast=p
Why won’t we reveal our real names? Oh the irony, it burns.
Because some of the people who make these threats do carry them out.
And now I have to shower before we go out to dinner. Please enjoy your sarcasm while I’m gone!
Quark, did you even read anything of what I’ve said? Because I never said that everyone deserves to be treated with the greatest of respect on the internet. I said we shouldn’t condone death and rape threats. So unless you can find somewhere where I’ve threatened to kill or rape you or otherwise threatened your physical safety, you can’t really say I’m being hypocritical here, darling. Unlike you.
Also, for the record, I would totally tell you to go fuck yourself in real life, because you should go fuck yourself.
And Quark, el duderino, I kinda wish this WAS in meatspace because your ass deserves the most emphatic of middle fingers.
My real name is Buttery Hamsters.
“Why must you all swear? My virgin ears cannot take it, hand me my salts.”
–Quark
Ohai, Boobzers! I’ve been so busy with the startup that I’ve only barely been able to keep track of what you’ve all been up to, and I have missed you!
Well, not the trolls, clearly, but everyone else.
With respect, this attitude is dangerously naive. You may not have experienced the worst consequences that such trolls are capable of bringing about, and you seem to be rather blithe about the very real dangers here.
I once researched and wrote an academic piece, an extended research essay, about a in intersection between the lives of American women in the 1950s and a controversial cultural topic involving the ownership and use of an object considered by some to be strongly gendered. I got a couple of reasoned responses, including one person who pointed out a flaw in my methodology meaning that I probably *underestimated* the correlation I was basing my argument on.
I also got a couple of hundred disgusting and violent messages attacking me for having the temerity to even think about, let alone write about such objects. I reported each and every email to campus security and the police in the city where my apartment was. Campus security was a joke, and though two detectives from the city police came to visit me and run trace software on my computer (this was the early 00s, so pre-twitter) to track the messages and emails, they were unable to do much. They did locate a few of the actual people posting such messages and offered to facilitate my putting in complaints with the local authorities where those individuals lived. I did a few for those living within a city of me, but that was perhaps one percent of the messagers.
Meanwhile, one of my demented little pen pals (not one of the most violent or graphic, surprisingly) began to stalk me. About five months after the messages started rolling in, he waited for me one night, grabbed me off the street, drove me to an empty house and raped me. When I regained consciousness, he slapped and punched me for a while, then raped me again. Sometime afterward, he left me alone and I was able to break a window and get out.
Afterward, the police were able to use his own computer to see all the messages he sent me as well as all the details and data he collected on me and some video and pictures he shot in that house.
“almost 0″ chance =/= 0 chance
As Ally pointed out to you, it is difficult to know when such behavior indicates physical danger and for that reason it is entirely logical and reasonable to behave as if there is physical danger within each barrage of threat. Because it is actually, really there, and denying that fact, or handwaving it away is not helpful either for actual or potential victims.
What is important, what is deadly fucking crucial here is not to minimize the very real danger but to form strategies to act even in the face of such danger and to act to stop it. I think you are feeling defensive here because I honestly believe that you mean well and you want to be an advocate and ally.
But I have been there and you are Not. Helping. You are in fact coming across as being dismissive of the violence some of us have “really” experienced, and the reasonable and rational caution we now take.
My name is H.B. Manatee.
@ dusty – being attacked on the internet is unpleasant and inappropriate. Some attacks (e.g. being threatened with rape or murder) are worse than others, but that doesn’t make your behaviour OK. Far from it.
@tooimpure – you have now actually made a rape threat. Great. Thanks.
gillyrosebee: I am so sorry that happened to you, Jedi Hugs.
Umnmmmm, no no no. That was not what I meant at all.
Quark: STOP being a disingenuous asshole, that was not a rape threat. Come the fuck on.
I meant giving you the finger, NOT anal penetration.
OK, well threatening to stick your finger up someone’s backside counts as a rape threat to me and I am really, really, seriously and genuinely getting disturbed by this place.
gillyrosebee, All the hugs. That’s terrible.
My name IS my real name and being a prude about fuckin’ explicit expletives will rightly get you nowhere here.
Oh. Well, I’m sure you can see how that could be very easily misinterpreted. Maybe you should be a little more careful.
…and I’m not going to post my full name here (or even too many identifying specifics) because after the rapist fuckwad went to jail and got out after only a fraction of his time, he dropped off the grid (and it took his parole officer almost a year to let me know, even though he’d promised that when he got out he was going to find me and kill me).
No, I’m actually not clear as to how that could be misinterpreted.
Look, you posted bullshit. You were called out on it. And now instead of taking a step back and actually reading what people are telling you, you’ve decided to take over the entire thread. As CL pointed out above, YOU are the one who is trampling boundaries here. You’re a guest (just as we all are), you took a great big shit on the living room rug, and now instead of offering to help clean it up, you’re standing here screaming at anybody who dares to tell you that you shouldn’t shit on the rug.
Now you’re being absurd. You’re smarter than this, right?
But go if you’re so disturbed.
Hahahahaha go fuck yourself Quark. You know whose behavior is faaaaaaar from okay? Yours, you apologist for rape and murder threatening thugs.
Also, you don’t get to call me dusty. Full handle or nothing, it’s only polite, oh clutcher-of-pearls.
(Anyone who’s not a trolly troll who should go fuck themselves can call me deste, though, because you guys are awesome and have my blessing to use this approved nickname.)
Has anyone emailed the Dark Lord about Quark? This wouldn’t be the first time a troll has pulled the long con.
Also, I’m so sorry, gillyrosebee. All the biggest of internet hugs to you, should you want them.
Sticking up a middle finger is a common cultural shorthand in the wider western world for the phrase “fuck you”. So far as I am aware, it is not understood to be a threat of rape, and your concern trolling is not helping you be taken more seriously here.
@gillyrosebee
Thank you for sharing what happened and I am so sorry.
Thanks for all the hugs. A fair 98% of the time, I am as over it as you can manage to be. Every so often I get triggered, and our Ms Quark has managed to do so with the concern trolling and the “let me take you to school on something I know nothing about” attitude.
Quark, let me be clear. I’m significantly pissed at you, but I want to believe you are being genuine. Call me an idealist. Can you take a breath and try to see it from a perspective not your own?
Where I come from, threatening to take a finger to someone’s backside has very clear meanings, and even if the poster didn’t mean that, they should be a LOT more careful in a thread about internet rape threats!
@gillyrosebee – Yes, I can do that, and understand people disagree with me and feel offended *even though it was not my intention to offend*.
Can you take a breath and see there is a difference between unintentionally offending people (which I seem to have done) and intentionally attacking them (which many people in here are doing to me)?
Quark,
Interesting how everybody seemed to understand what I meant but you.
Huh.
Gillyrosebee, I’m sorry that happened to you!
Where I come from, derailing threads and whining about other people taking death and rape threats seriously has very clear meanings, and even if the poster didn’t mean it, they should go fuck off back to the dank troll-hole from whence they came.
As Archer might say. “um, phrasing.”
(although yeah, that’s a hell of a leap.)
Quark the problem is that once you were told you were being offensive, you doubled down on that behavior.
CL – I’m not trying to be offensive. Almost everyone else is. There is a big difference.
There is, but not the one you think.
Quark, Intent doesn’t matter as much as impact. Whatever your intent (and to be honest, I’m not inclined to be generous at this point), you have left many of us feeling like you took a shit* on David’s rug. You have triggered people who have experienced violence. You have been petulant, and passive-aggressive. You are doing your best to derail this thread and make it all about you.
*Stealing that from Chie because it’s too perfect.
And that is the last time I will pay any attention to you, Quark.
Aw, everyone’s being mean to poor Quark for no reason.
Yeah, Quark, you really should just go away for a bit and think about why you’ve gotten the reception you have.
So, back to the Jane Austen story… Can anyone imagine MRAs ever pulling anything like that off?
By “anything like that” I don’t mean the death/rape threats, but the activism that led to an actual positive change.
@leftwingfox
Admittedly that was horrendous phrasing but that assumption seems really bizarre to me.
Oh Quark, you don’t have to try to be offensive to be offensive. Your intent is not important here, as you’ve still clearly offended… pretty much everyone in this thread.
cloudiah: I can see them writing a half-assed petition to have Warren Farrell’s face put on the ten, but it going absolutely nowhere.
Cloudiah – you say I have been “passive-aggressive”. Well, others have been “aggressive-aggressive” – is that better?
Many people on this site have behaved appallingly towards me today, yet all still think they have the upper-hand in appropriate and civilised internet behaviour! I haven’t “taken a shit all over” anybody’s rug by stating an opinion.
As I said before, you should all take a long, hard look at yourselves and wonder whether you aren’t actually part of the problem you claim to despise. Abuse is a sliding scale. What you are doing isn’t as bad as rape and death threats, but it isn’t good either. It is abuse. It is harassment. And it has to stop.
From the Telegraph article linked by David above:
This is what Troll #2, Gary from Birmingham had to say. Notice anything, Quark? That’s right, he’s echoing the exact same point you keep making. He started his call with this comment:
This is the kind of person you’re aligned with on this issue. You can keep blundering around, feigning ignorance about why people here are angry with you, but you can’t deny the fact that you are directly echoing what actual abusers say, which is precisely why you’re getting the reaction you are.
No, I can’t imagine MRAs actually being effective. It’s too much like work.
@ Chie – I am NOT echoing it. I am calling for these people to be exposed and punished, which “Gary” is certainly not doing.
I am just encouraging people not to live in terror because if they do the trolls win.
Maybe if we cut off Quark’s attention supply, she’ll finally fuck off.
Okay, one strike, next up.
Quark, tooimpure has made it clear that there was a misunderstanding and that there was absolutely no implied rape threat in that comment. That is how someone owns a mistake and responds to it. I’m sure zie would offer an apology if asked in good faith for one.
You began with a position that your limited experience should trump everyone else, and that because you have never been harmed by one of the people who threatened you online, those threats must be actually harmless. Your intent does not matter once you have been told that your framing of the issue is offensive and you continue to double down on it.
Let me be crystal clear about this. What you said was factually incorrect and highly unhelpful. It was pointed out to you, very gently at first, that your perceptions and experience were being incorrectly applied here. That you do not like being corrected when you are wrong is understandable, but beside the point here, and such correction does not constitute an attack. Your framing of the issue is being contested, and when you decided to reject that and double down on your misapprehension of the situation, the response here has been that you can go fuck off with your trolling. No one attacked or threatened you.
So let me get Quark’s position straight:
Being threatened with rape and murder via the interwebs and in real life = no big deal, they won’t actually do it.
Being told to fuck off with your minimizing bullshit = THE WORST EVAR YOU GUYS
??
Abuse is not the same thing as being impolite.
Your ‘Epic Derailing’ trophy is being shipped to you now Quark. Why don’t you go wait out by the mailbox until it shows up?
Geez, not just a tedious troll, but an asshole, rape-threatening apologist *pretentious* troll. The betting parlour will start taking bets on what time Quark gets her pretentious ass banned. (Outside odds that Quark will just go away are real slim, sinse such pretentious trolls just can not comprehend that people wouldn’t like them!)
Quark, you’re not being abused. You’re not entitled to not being called out for having shitty opinions. I’m at least as entitled to my opinions as you are to yours, and my opinion that you should fuck off is, in my opinion, much less toxic than your opinion that rape and death threats shouldn’t be taken seriously.
But if your hurt feelings equate to abuse in your sad, small little mind, feel free to go away. It’s not like we’ll follow you elsewhere. Unlike, y’know, actual abusers.
Didn’t they do that petition to rename Vancouver to Mancouver, and half the signatures on it were from people making fun of them, and even with the mocking signatures they only got a tiny fraction of what they needed? Did I dream that?
@ gillyrose, uh no, the attacks on me started immediately, there was nothing “gentle” about it. And you cannot read my opening post and tell me in good faith you think I was trying to “start shit” as I have been accused of.
You honestly can’t see there is anything inappropriate about the response towards me?
I never said “my limited experience should trump everyone else”. Why do people keep ascribing things to me I haven’t said? What I said was not factually incorrect. The fact is the majority of people who make threats on the internet don’t carry them through. That is a fact. That does NOT make them okay, as I said from the beginning. These people should be exposed and punished, as I said from the beginning.
I just don’t see how it is helpful to anyone to live in a state of paralysed terror. It is always better to feel safe.