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.
For some reason Anita’s tweets aren’t showing up for me. Anyone know why?
“I’m not violent, and if you accuse me of violence once more, I’ll beat the s**t out of you!”
And every day the toxic men prove her right.
“I just thought the family should have some time to grieve before their daughters death became politicized.
Their deaths were already in the public arena. That’s the nature of a public shooting. In any case, I don’t suppose the family has time to be reading Sarkeesian’s Twitter feed, which is about her own opinions and not them anyway. And if you think Sarkeesian’s harassers are in any way being respectful of the dead…
Yeah, how come nobody blames toxic feminism for all these continuously occurring shootings and mass shootings of males by jilted or frustrated women oh right because it rarely happens.
“It’s not hate if it’s justified!” — Every hatemonger EVER.
Also, “demigog” will be my new fave word for these know-nothings. It seems the perfect term for someone who doesn’t even know what a demagogue IS, much less how to spell the word.
These twitter clowns are like Nazis. They hate everyone who isn’t them, they have no empathy, they’re deeply sexist and racist, they believe logic is for wimps and they worship pure rage
Kabun37 try disabling AdBlockPlus (if you have it on)
Funny, but the tweeters who blamed that same girl for the shooting didn’t care what you thought.
I’d rather be a demigod than a demigog… being a gog is hard enough! Half of one is impossible!
GigaWalrus:
This is classic deflection. We hear this excuse literally EVERY SINGLE TIME a man decides to go on a shooting spree. We heard it with Elliot Rodger, we heard it with Adam Lanza, we’re STILL hearing it about Marc Lépine over twenty years after the fact. It doesn’t matter if we speak out a day or a week or a year after the shooting, we will still being told that trying to figure out WHY this keeps happening is “politicizing” the issue.
We’re told that pointing out clear patterns of misogyny, entitlement and toxic masculinity is somehow interfering with the grieving process of a family who are also trying to figure out why their loved one was fucking murdered. We’re told that we should just wring our hands in silence every time something like this happens, because to speaking out about the reasons (beyond the nice safe red herring of “mental health issues” of course) would be somehow “disrespectful” the victims and their families. And while we’re waiting for the appropriate time to speak up, another sad angry young man gets his hands on a gun and the same thing happens all over again and we’re told to sit down and shut up, because it’s still not the time to have a conversation about toxic masculinity. And nothing ever changes.
So no, fuck this noise. Anita Sarkeesian tweeting pointing out a blindingly obvious similarity between school shootings is not detracting from the grief of the family who have never heard of her.
She’s commentating from a point-of-view of feminism. This is fine. I have no problem with feminist majors that speak on topics from their field’s perspective.
My issue with Sarkeesian’s comments were:
a) the perceived insensitivity to the victims and their families: considering how often she is taken out of context and reframed, you would think that Sarkeesian would be more sensitive of reframing a tragedy like this on the day that it happened.
b) Reframing this in her position of fame could have negative effects, especially on the day it occurred. I followed her tweets hoping that she would mention mental-health problems. Shootings in America may in fact have a lot to do with masculinity, but rational, mentally healthy men don’t shoot people because a woman turns them down. There is no evidence that misogyny is a mental-illness but a product of cultural-norms. Reframing this in her position of fame could have negative effects.
As I said, she has every right to say what she said. If #gamergate was really about “shitty journalism” some of these comments should never have existed. I’m not a supporter of GG, never will be. Sarkeesian, to an outsider and someone who disagrees with her use of negative language connotations, made a mistake by reframing this as a cultural issue when it may be more likely a psychological issue.
I mean, a lot of anti-feminists are actual, literal nazis, or nazi sympathizers, as in, for real. Weev being a recent example. So yeah, a woman said something = feminists are worse than nazis. But having actual nazis & white supremacists & other ultra rightwing extremists on your side = A-OK.
Anita Sarkeesian is nothing like Adolf Hitler. On the other hand, that “Turk Man” who dissed her is a lot like those who perpetrated the Armenian Genocide.
The one we’re STILL not allowed to talk about after all this time.
I don’t know what gogs are, but I’d rather be half of one than a magog.
Yes, horrible person, please do go on telling Anita what she thinks. After all, you know it so much better than she does!
You’re an idiot if you think that talking about the misogyny that led to this murder is “politicizing” the murder, but the misogyny itself is not political. The only “political” act is talking about it, in this view, not having it or acting on it.
Fool.
HCK, have a welcome package!
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
@PoM,
Somehow I think the asshat who shat out that tweet would still rage at the idea that women should be owed any acknowledgement for any ‘good behaviour’ on the part of men (if you can call not shooting people good behaviour. Which I sense he might). The decision not to commit heinous acts of violence would clearly be due to men’s inherent moral and intellectual superiority and all credit automatically goes to them in a shower of congratulatory cookies. Women are clearly responsible, however, when they do. To me this asshat’s horrible, horrible message translates as women don’t keep men from shooting people, women make them.
Ugh, now I feel bad in the head. Must look at tiny kitten.
Given the frequency with which people are shot to death in the US, any given day will be “not the right time” to talk about it, because some family somewhere will be grieving the loss of a loved one who was shot. Not talking about it leads to not doing anything about it, which allows the cycle to continue. IMO seeking to understand the problem and develop effective interventions to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future is far more respectful to the victims and their families than waiting for the “right time to talk about it”, which never seems to come.
People are accused of “politicizing” an issue when they state an unwelcome opinion.
It doesn’t even matter if really policy is involved. If some poor white cis het male has to rethink the messages culture has fed him, you are “politicizing”.
I’m really tired of this accusation because it makes it impossible to get anything done. It’s like tone policing. We can’t actually discuss the real issue because we’re too busy discussing how we should be discussing.
and @ Bina: I don’t know what gogs are either, but it’s funny to imagine
Gogs are little blue-and-white porcelain dogs. Demigogs are their puppies.
The corporate media was at the church shoving microphones into children’s faces to get the scoop on how it felt to be a bystander in the latest school massacre.
But now is not a good time to talk about male violence. The corporate media sure as hell won’t. They just kept asking the kids questions till they got the ONE they wanted and spent the rest of the day claiming it was over a girl.
But women shouldn’t talk about male violence cuz it is in our face right now. Wait till later.
I’m not tired of the accusation. I’m tired of people acting as though it is settled fact that “politicizing” something is bad.
Most things that occur that make the news either are intrinsically political, or are closely connected to things that are intrinsically political. Most everything that isn’t a simple human-interest puff piece is going to be, at most, one degree of separation from politics.
This murder? Intrinsically political. The act of taking out a gun and shooting someone is a political act. It is a message: “I have the power to harm you and I’m going to prove it.” Anything dealing with power is political, intrinsically, inextricably.
Is Sarkeesian politicizing this? No, she is just pointing out the politics that are already baked into this story. Accusing her of “politicizing” this murder is done in an attempt to silence that march of facts. It’s done by people who benefit from the current power structure and know that they can only lose when that structure is questioned.
Oooo, that sounds cute. Pity there’s no room in my place for kitsch, or I’d be out right now buying some.
Because misogyny isn’t political, don’tcha know? We were told as much 25 whole damn years ago this year, when Marc Lépine deliberately singled out the women for death when he shot up that college…
Of course, being an uppity university feminist at the time, I didn’t listen and went right on talking about it. So did the women who helped bring about the long-gun registry, the same our very misogynous SupposiTory gummint recently scrapped.
In light of what happened in Ottawa a couple days ago, they would do well to rethink all that.
QFGDT.
Moreover, pulling out a gun is saying “I have the power to KILL you, and if I can, I WILL.” And they want us to believe that such an act is NOT inherently political? All this bullshit about “don’t politicize this, don’t politicize that” is just another way of saying “I don’t want to think about the inherent politics of this, because then I might have to actually DO something about it.” Heaven forfend that any of them should risk their necks to change something until the corpse lands on their own doorsteps. And maybe not even then.