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Jane Austen and the Rape-Threatening Men

The face that launched a thousand threatening tweets.
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.

https://twitter.com/CCriadoPerez/status/362499703285358592

And a more graphic example:

https://twitter.com/ianmcqui/status/361587787511779328

And some even more graphic threats directed at female MPs.

https://twitter.com/JonathanHaynes/status/361967658087890945

https://twitter.com/JonathanHaynes/status/361964227516309504

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.

jazzmanivan

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

Twitter faces boycott after ‘inaction’ over rape threats against feminist bank notes campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez

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.

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tooimpurenangel
11 years ago

Oh, if only I could invoke the patience of Reza Aslan…

freemage
11 years ago

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.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
11 years ago

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.

cloudiah
11 years ago

If you don’t like twitter’s anti-harrassment policies……DON’T USE TWITTER!!!!

If you don’t like potholes, DON’T DRIVE ANYWHERE!!!

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

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.

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
11 years ago

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.

freemage
11 years ago

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.

dustydeste
dustydeste
11 years ago

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.

cloudiah
11 years ago

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.

Quark
Quark
11 years ago

@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.

Pear_tree
Pear_tree
11 years ago

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.

cloudiah
11 years ago

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.

tooimpurenangel
11 years ago

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.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

Yes, well those newcomers stepped in some shit, just like you. Learn from them.

hellkell
hellkell
11 years ago

cloudiah: I’ll be seeing you in the Sarcasm Time Out Corner. I’ll bring a nice red.

Quark
Quark
11 years ago

“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.

cloudiah
11 years ago

Ooh, hellkell, can we try on lipsticks? I never know how to pick good shades. 😀

Kate
Kate
11 years ago

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?

Kate
Kate
11 years ago

And appaerntly I switched the subject I was talking to mid-way through my last post… whoops!

grumpycatisagirl
grumpycatisagirl
11 years ago

“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.

tooimpurenangel
11 years ago

Oooh, can I visit and join in the lipstick trying on? I’m so bad at that!

Quark
Quark
11 years ago

@ 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” – ?

dustydeste
dustydeste
11 years ago

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.

Michael Søndberg Olsen

Quark, please be inventive, or at least funny.

Chie Satonaka
Chie Satonaka
11 years ago

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.

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.