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.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but even JB isn’t that dim.
t1oracle,
Did you actually just attempt shitty armchair diagnosing and recommend someone take a pharmaceutical drug used for treating ADHD? Are you that much of an inappropriate chucklefuck?
Did you actually just avoid my question about the seahorses again?
I also think that JB would be unable to write that many words without calling someone a w—–.
@cassandrakitty
Here, I’ll give you the abbreviated version.
“toxic masculinity” = men bad
black person = negative stereotypes
black men = bad men + negative stereotypes
black men get
1) shot
2) arrested
3) falsely accused
4) reported to the police
5) treated as threatening.
etc
Somewhat related, I always wanted to know how trolls read my avatar and ‘nym. I always thought they looked ambiguous enough to be read as male, but t1oracle made me want to test that hypothesis further.
Did anybody here threaten to rape or kill you? Did anyone dox you? Did anyone threaten a school shooting at an event where you will be? Are we tracking you down on various social media platforms and sending hateful messages to you there? No? Then it’s not equivalent. What you are doing is actually demonstrating the toxic masculinity you claim does not exist. Your hurt fee-fees at us not giving you the respect and adulation you think you deserve in our own space is somehow equally or more important than Anita Sarkeesian’s safety being threatened. Really?
I see what you did there! 😀 I doubt the trollacle is going to get it though. Even though he’s very much a biology expert.
Ah, so what you’re saying is that you did about as well in math class as you did in history.
@ Policy of Madness
Just saying “evopsyche” does not discredit an argument. Not sure I was even heading down the evopsyche path. Are you saying that there is absolutely nothing at all useful to either sex in the tradition definitions of masculine/feminine? Nothing to build on from there, we must start from scratch? If so, I guess we just fundamentally disagree. And I’m not talking about assigning traits/roles to sexes.
@cassandrakitty
It’s entirely possible I’m confused, or more likely, I’m not certain about this whole topic. What about that paragraph seems contradictory? Do you not agree that there are certain traits that seem to manifest more frequently in one sex or another? I’m aware of the argument that that is 100% the result of social conditioning, I just respectfully disagree with it. Later in that paragraph, I state that the idea of masculinity/femininity is best redefined or scrapped in terms of gender, but that SOMETHING should exist to provide a reference point or framework to address inhabiting a male or female body, specifically. Do you disagree that there are some differences in being male or female? If so, again, I respectfully disagree. But, that doesn’t make my paragraph contradictory.
@ Policy of Madness
So you disagree that anyone at all should find some controversy in Anita’s tweets. OK. I don’t understand it, but OK.
@Misha
Thanks alot Misha, it’s good to know that people on here have manners…
As for seahorses they have their own gender roles. Not the same ones that humans have.
Oh dear Bootsy, as if one long-winded tedious asshole wasn’t enough.
@t1oracle:
No, what you want is for the world to put itself quietly into the two little boxes you’ve put out for it, no complaints. You want to camouflage (with the oaky scent of fresh golden leaves) your fragile ego under the “masculine” box, and pretend that every assault on the former is actually an assault on the latter.
And finally, you apparently want to waste everyone’s time with tedious misconceptions of really basic concepts.
Wait I thought scented candles were misandry…
Is “camouflage” some sort of undercover misandry scent or what? Poor man is fooled into buying it, then as the scent spreads into his room, he is brainwashed into being pro-feminist…
Oh hell. I already explained the intersection of racism and toxic masculinity (ie white supremacy). I’m not doing it again.
t1oracle first needs a working understand of both racism and toxic masculinity to engage in the conversation, which all evidence indicates he has neither.
Hint; your definitions are bad. Your logic is bad. You should feel bad.
@cassandrakitty
Math class? Do we really want to enter that kind of measuring contest with me?
Including racism, intersectionality, and biology jesus on a hockey puck.
Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were royalty. Emperor kitty insists that I point out that he still outranks you, though.
Interesting that a man can’t just buy a “forest” scented candle, no that’s not neutral/masculine enough, must get a war-related one…
I don’t think sea horses have the intellectual capacity to support the notion of gender roles. Here’s a hint; gender roles are not a description of how physical body parts are used.
I’m kind of wary of “femininity” and “masculinity” as categories, mostly ’cause it always seems to get defined like this:
Femininity: pretty, nurturing, and dependent/supplicating
Masculinity: in possession of some authority over feminine people.
Obviously there are more and less extreme/shitty manifestations of that idea in practice, but to me that’s what it invariably seems to boil down to, at least in the US. I’m not really convinced it’s a healthy idea, down at its core.
I’m neither a feminist theorist nor an anthropologist, though.
I think the conversation about how what people generally mean when they say “gender” isn’t the same thing as what they mean when they say “sex” may be a bit beyond our new friend.
@titianblue
I hate to disrupt any wagering that may be going on right now via the internets, but I can assure you I’m no puppet, sock or otherwise.
@titianblue
I know the difference, and did not, in fact, conflate them in a previous post. I assume you mean this:
The same shit would happen in reverse if a writer tied a toxic version of femininity or feminism or whatever agreed upon term is the female corollary of “masculinity” to a tragic event, no matter the adjective used to qualify it.
It’s pretty clear there that I’m not confusing the terms, I’m including both and also the phrase “or whatever agreed upon term is the female corollary of “masculinity'” to emphasize that point.
@kirbywarp
“No, what you want is for the world to put itself quietly into the two little boxes you’ve put out for it, no complaints. You want to camouflage (with the oaky scent of fresh golden leaves) your fragile ego under the “masculine” box, and pretend that every assault on the former is actually an assault on the latter.
And finally, you apparently want to waste everyone’s time with tedious misconceptions of really basic concepts.”
Or maybe, what I want is exactly what I am sitting here telling you that I want? I don’t want to put anyone into a box. I’ve stated numerous times that sexuality is a spectrum. I simply do not want to be vilified. I want my son to be able to go school confident in who he is and not have to worry about how others may perceive him.
You may imagine that you exist in a space outside of social constructs, but everything that has been argued as “toxic masculinity” is simply another social construct. It is a new one that insists on invalidating masculinity.
I still want an explanation of how the male anglerfish expresses his masculine gender identity, though.
Toxic sure. But masculine? No.
And you’re still conflating racism with misandry. Stop doing that. It’s offensive. Why, it’s downright toxic. You’re toxicity is stinking up our nice cauldron.
Arrgh. Your not you’re.