What a surreal life Anita Sarkeesian must lead, in which virtually everything she says and does becomes grist for the Great Internet Lady Harassment Machine, Sarkeesian Division.
Take the latest blowup, which followed a few comments Sarkeesian made in the wake of Friday’s school shooting in Marysville, which may have been triggered by the shooter’s angry response to a romantic breakup. On Friday, Sarkeesian posted a few thoughts on the matter on Twitter:
We need to seriously address connections between violence, sexism and toxic ideas of manhood before boys and men commit more mass shootings.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
Not a coincidence it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings. The pattern is connected to ideas of toxic masculinity in our culture.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 24, 2014
While it it not literally true that every single mass shooter in history has been male, we are talking about an almost exclusively male club: one recent attempt at crunching the numbers found that 97% of school shooters have been male, and 79% of them white. (The Maryville shooter was Native American.)
In any case, the notion that a crime so heavily associated with men might have something to do with our society’s notions of masculinity isn’t exactly a radical notion. Indeed, it seems rather obvious.
But to Sarkeesian’s many haters, on Twitter and elsewhere, it was as if Sarkeesian had just posted a video of herself drowning puppies. Cue the twitterstorm.
Here are just a selection of the literally hundreds of lovely comments that Sarkeesian had Tweeted at her on Friday and Saturday after making her original comments.
[Giant TRIGGER WARNING for violent, explicit threats, harassment]
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There were, of course, the explicit threats:
And the implicit threats:
And the sexual harassment:
And those who merely expressed their hope that Sarkeesian would kill herself:
Or die a horrible death:
Or simply die :
But not everyone wished violence on her. Some just told her that the threats and/or harassment she’s already getting is totally justified:
(Apparently by “fishing” Mr. de Alba means “expressing an opinion or making an observation.” Also note that the tweets that set off this latest wave of harassment didn’t contain the #GamerGate hashtag. )
Speaking of harassment, we’re just getting started in our chronicle of the latest wave.
Let’s continue with an assortment of Tweets using the c-word, a favorite slur amongst Sarkeesian’s detractors.
Why, yes, that is Suzanne McCarley, A Voice for Men’s “Assistant Managing Editor” happily adding her voice to the harassment.
Others pulled out the f-word:
She was called a “bitch.”
She was called a “whore.”
She was called a “terrorist.”
And a Nazi:
One fellow said that he thought Sarkeesian’s tweets were actually worse than the shooting itself:
And one even declared her “officially worse than Wil Wheaton,” the former Star Trek:TNG actor who has won mass opprobrium from internet dicks for publicly expressing his belief that people should not be dicks.
To add insult to injury, a few reported Sarkeesian herself to Twitter for various imaginary infractions:
Another asked why she wasn’t in jail for her, er, crimes:
Just to remind you: these tweets are all from TWO DAYS’ worth of harassment and threats on Twitter. And this isn’t all of them.
At this point anyone who claims that Sarkeesian is “making up” the harassment she gets, or writing it herself, or just the work of a “few trolls,” is either disingenuous or delusional.
I’ll leave the last word to Sarkeesian herself.
Our culture is deeply sick when simply asking questions about how toxic forms of masculinity may harm men leads to hours of hate on Twitter.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 25, 2014
EDITED TO ADD:
ATTENTION NEW COMMENTERS! I would like to draw your attention to this bit from my comments policy:
[I]f I’m writing about someone who’s gotten harassed by misogynists on the internet, and you want to talk about how much they deserved it, or what a lying liar they are? Well, fuck you! Your comments go right into the trash.
So take that into consideration. It might save you some time.
CORRECTION: I removed a screenshot of a Tweet that wasn’t threatening but was posted by a troll. See here.
@t1oracle,
“Do you understand human evolution? Tell me, what is the primary factor that influences the evolution of a species?”
Well, first I seduce yo mama, then she gives birth to either the Starchild or the Kwisatz Haderach, depending on what religion she is. I personally have been driving human evolution ever since I crash-landed here thousands of your years ago. Bleep blorp!
I thought one of my friends cleverly photoshopped that pic of Anita at the Colbert studios. OMG! I’m so excited.
@indifferentsky:
Nope, it’s the real deal. 😀
https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/527685454598926336
Does this mean we can gamergaters to the list of right wing reactionaries who were too stupid to grasp that Colbert is not really a right wing pundit, he just plays one on TV?
That was supposed to be ‘we can add’
The Sarkeesian Report! Hurrah!
The GGers on that twitter feed are hilarious – they’re actually, genuinely sulking, with tweets that are the equivalent of, “I didn’t even like that show anyway, so there”. Ha.
Pretty sure that gamergate dudes weren’t exactly the core audience for the Colbert Report. Threatening to boycott a show you weren’t watching anyway, so effective.
They’ve called Colbert an evil SJW before, so I am amused at the anger 😀
i agree it is a toxic culture. However i think putting the right words for the job at hand is important. “masculinity” opens up a can of worms, maybe entitlement & ego would fit the bill better. anything associated with a us vs them mentality is a buzzword that begs condemnation.
(Should have checked this thread before posting in the other one!) My favorite responses so far are the ones decrying how biased the interview was.
I can only hope that’s coming from people who have sincerely never heard of The Colbert Report before and have no idea what it is.
Don’t worry, ladies, Anthony Finelli is here to tell you how to gender-issues right.
Yes, because, as we all know, women should never use confrontational language that might make someone uncomfortable. After all, it’s only when we make people uncomfortable that the bad stuff happens. Also, toxic masculinity is not just crammed down the throats of little boys, but also girls. There is no gender bias about it in our culture, as anyone, no guys, literally anyone can be an entitled little shite.
All sarcasm aside, the reason it’s called toxic masculinity is because it describes the subset of stereotypically masculine behaviours which are toxic. Toxic femininity also probably exists, but it doesn’t seem to cause as much social disruption, so it doesn’t get talked about as much. But, I thought we had already discussed this…
Gosh. And to think I was using gender-specific terms to challenge gender-specific issues. Thank you Anthony Finelli for setting me straight.
You probably should have read the rest of the thread before dropping that bit of useless mansplaination in here.
Thank you so much for telling me how to keep your precious feelings happy and comfortable, because we all know that social change only happens when the dominant group is super-comfy and nobody challenges them.
Hmm, a bit late I know, but just re-reading things, and thought:
The first thing that came to mind with ‘JV’ is Justin Vacula. Granted, he’s almost certainly not the only person using those initials who has thoughts like that, but…
I’m half shocked half sickened about how they all handled a well written, important perspective on a current public event, that from my view, had no manipulative motives other than addressing the “mental health” issue they’re all screaming about. Substance addiction isn’t exclusive to a single substance- much like mental health isn’t some faulty wiring, but also negligent programming. Sorry about all them Anita. I really feel you. I made comments on the “Woman takes 10 hour walk through NYC” cat calling video and subsequent “Funny or Die” mock video and received similar Feminazi and threatening retorts. Staving off the feeling that humanity is fucked… whats our next move in this? lots of love. D
Dillon what are you even saying?
-s+c, excuse me!
Ableism, misogyny, sundry crimes against coherency, misgendering, and profanity all in one tiny little post!
You must be so proud.
I’ve binned that last troll’s comment. We do not need that shit here.
So she blamed School Shootings on Masculinity issues, rather then basing in on men are more likely to be born Sociopaths then women, and if these sociopaths exhibit early signs of aggression (They do not forgive they only collect injustices, they constantly try to manipulate those around them by acting disarming but act aggressive when alone…) which school Shooters have consistently shown at early childhood (Dillon from Columbine was reported by those who knew him as a kid, to grow violent and attack if you did not buy into his lies when he got in trouble.)
Nope, its masculinity. I later news, Blacks are all bad because Blacks have a higher crime rate! This has nothing to do with Blacks making up the majority of poor in large cities due to past segregation forcing them into their own closed off societal areas, and in turn education in these regions are lower…
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Does anyone know what comic that drawing of the lady and the monster is from?
These are what I can conclude about Anita’s tweet about “it’s always men and boys committing mass shootings”:
a – she is lying;
b – she is mistaken and didn’t do her research;
c – she is over-exaggerating. Refer to a);
d – she is trolling;
e – she is, intentionally or not, promoting hatred and/or discrimination by putting up false statistics.
Why should I take her seriously if her comments are based on deception, hatred/discrimination, and lacking in truth?
Donald Trump made a similar tweet regarding a different topic. What differentiates him from Anita? The goal is different, but the actions are the same.