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]
.
.
.
.
.
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.
@vaiyt
“You don’t need to be masculine to be heterosexual.”
Yes, sexuality is a spectrum.
“You also don’t need to be violently entitled to be masculine.”
Of course.
Nope. Fromafar is just stating facts. You are demonstrating with every post your ignorance on these matters. That you are unaware of the depth of your ignorance. And that you are a bigot, to boot. Wailing and gnashing your teeth won’t make you any wiser, you know.
Just when you thought he couldn’t get any less coherent, here we are.
I’m starting the countdown to meltdown …starts timer.
Did someone put the popcorn on?
@fromafar2013
You cannot accept one factor and dismiss the other two. Masculinity isn’t a social construct. In fact if you study nature you will see that gender roles are pervasive throughout every species that procreates sexually. This isn’t some high order function, this is something that has evolved into our species. Epigenetics and social constructs play their part, but they don’t determine everything and they certainly aren’t running the show.
I bought some wasabi-flavoured popcorn, the other day, and it was, unexpectedly, sweet. Sweet and horse radish-y. Not, IMO, a good combination.
Still a better combination that t1oracle’s unoriginal mixture of racism, misogyny and determined stupidity.
@titianblue
“That you are unaware of the depth of your ignorance. And that you are a bigot, to boot.”
Oh, the irony.
It’s like trying to convince skin heads that black people are human in here.
He’s a bad troll, a very bad troll. He might at least offer to make us some popcorn!
Hate of what? Hate of the idea of men as sexually aggressive, violent and unemotional? Hate of the idea that being in any way like a woman is the worst thing that could happen to a man? Hate of the idea that being a victim of abuse is shameful for men? Hate of the idea that men have to be obsessed with sex and willing to resort to violence to obtain their jollies?
You’re damn right I hate all those things. They’re abhorrent ideas, and the sooner we leave them behind, the better.
GEEZ REALLY? No shit, Sherlock, that’s the whole fucking point. You’re almost there, almost developing a shred of self-consciousness, and then you flub it. We can’t just find the first comfortable hypothesis to explain something and then throw your hands up in the air, we have to do the goddamn research. Your hypothetical (well, white men shoot more because they buy more guns) doesn’t explain shit because white men do not own 98% of the guns in America. Try harder.
Snails. Snails procreate sexually. Care to point me to the gender roles within snails?
*adds biology to the massive heap of things about which t1oracle is ignorant.
I’m still waiting for him to explain how animals that aren’t sapient can have gender roles tbh.
Then don’t say masculinity is male heterosexuality, you disingenuous liar.
Do enlighten me. What are the gender roles of male vs. female sockeye salmon? What does “masculinity” mean with regard to migrating fish?
Yeast have a sexual reproductive cycle. I await your fascinating research on the gender roles of a-yeast versus α-yeast.
Oh oh! Spiders. Please explain how male spiders express their masculinity.
What kind of non-human species are we supposed to be imitating though? My vote is on hyenas.
Is it? What exactly are you trying to prove here? ‘cos it’s not that “men are human too”, you moron. Do you have any idea of the genders of the different people you are arguing?
Silly me, of course you don’t. You are trying to pretend that you have come here to prove something to the men-hating women that hang out here. Dear gods, pull your trousers up and stop waving your arse around. you are just embarrassing yourself.
I’m only doing this cause I just read that book and I’m kinda enjoying sharing what I learned.
The path of least resistance is part of the feedback loop that is enforced through the use of or threat of violence and often short circuits in such a way as to be harmful even to those perpetuating it. The cycle establishes that control is an essential part of ‘masculinity’, that the ‘manly’ reaction to having your ‘masculinity’ threatened (questioned by someone going against the path of least resistance) is violence, and that the best way to regain your lost ‘masculinity’ is to lash out against those you perceive took it from you. “Man up”
In the case of the school shooting, the girl who said “no” to dating the shooter, was making a choice against the path of least resistance according to the ‘masculine’ ideal of control (she took control away from the shooter by exercising her own control over the situation). The ‘safe’ or ‘easy’ choice would have been to say “yes”. Since she didn’t do that, the shooter reacted with violence (encouraged by toxic masculinity) as his socialization taught him was the best way to regain his ‘lost masculinity’. “If I can’t have you, no one can.”
Society reinforces this narrative by blaming the victim, “she should have said yes!” “she should have said “no” nicer!” and by deflecting criticism away from the underlying social structures that create the connections between ‘masculinity’ and violence.
Like the white civil rights activists murdered by other white people, this sends a message that choosing against the socially accepted narrative (that black people and/or women are inferior and need to be controlled) has lethal consequences and uses fear to enforce the status quo in the future. Hearing the story, many girls and women are going to be frightened to say “no” when boys and men approach them. Hence the existence of the ‘soft no’ or the ‘slow fade’ where you play along to make it look as if you aren’t challenging the narrative of control.
@titianblue
More vitriol to convey your rhetoric of hate for the masculine identity.
I’ve provided my arguments, applied logic, supplied evidence, and even referenced your own behaviors as part of my proof. The only thing you have left is to insult me.
Masculinity and femininity are equally valuable.
Gender roles are a part of nature and are prevalent in all species that reproduce sexually.
Masculinity and femininity are both natural and beautiful.
Masculinity and femininity have both contributed equally to human reproductive success.
Hating one or the other is sexist.
Labelling either as toxic is hateful.
Masculinity is not toxic.
Femininity is not toxic.
The phrase “toxic masculinity” is a hateful misnomer.
Vaiyt, did you know that I hate you? I do, apparently. We should get kirby in here so that I can hate on his masculine identity too.
(Which troll was it who loved repeating the same catchphrases over and over again? This one seems to be stuck on “rhetoric of hate”.)
Buahahahahahaha! Brb, screaming with laughter!
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=masculinity+social+construct&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C39&as_sdtp=
Just in case someone here hasn’t grasped the irony yet. The comments that have been directed at me here, are incredibly toxic. Maybe it’s not masculinity that you should be worried about…
Oh, good, we’re back to explaining adjectives again.
While someone copy-pastes the comments where we already explained that to you, sweetie, how about you explain gender roles in snails. I’m fascinated to see your application of “logic” to that one.
Not vitriol, poppet, I’m mocking you. And your stupidity. Does it burn?.
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!
Holy shit, you have to be putting us on. You cannot be for real. No real person would claim this after questioning what an adjective is!
Pls splain how the male anglerfish expresses his masculinity, and what this tells us about human social interactions. Extra points will be given for flowcharts and interpretive dance.