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.
@fromafar:
Sorry, but I’m going to have to squash your hopes.
Notice that he said “toxic masculinity” is a social construct. Notice also that he doesn’t understand what words mean.
The translation is this:
“‘toxic masculinity’ is phrase that has been invented by society in order to undermine masculinity, which is real and natural.”
I fell into the same trap at first…
@Misha
That’s really funny since my wife has ADD and she used to take adderall. I don’t consider it an insult and I even stated that I have no malicious intent. I do however intend to have a respectful conversation, even if the people participating insist on being disrespectful towards me.
“How do seahorses have ascribed gender roles”
The male carries the offspring the female does not. The males fight for the right to mate, the females do not. Do I need to go on?
Lol I got an answer about scents, but not what exactly t1oracle thinks masculinity is…
ceebarks – I don’t get bacon scent. Or other food scent. What’s the point? Just make some damn bacon and your house will reek of it! Bonus: You get to eat it. Yum.
“Gets pregnant” is not a gender role.
I really enjoy cinnamon-bun or cinnamon-roll candles. That’s a food-related scent I can get behind.
The irony fucking burns.
I want girls to be able to go to school confident that a boy won’t rape or kill them for rejecting him. I want girls in places to be able to go to school at all.
But please, tell me more about how mean we’re being to men and boys by by suggesting that they try NOT assaulting and murdering women.
To me, vanilla is one of those risky fragrances that’s either amazing or really bad, so I tend to avoid it. But still better than bacon. It’s a huge candle, too… we’ll be burning it forEVER and EVER.
Most candles that are supposed to smell like food don’t, but if they did wouldn’t that be terrible? So now you smell bacon, or cake, or bread or whatever, but there is none. Why would you pay money to do that to yourself?
@kirbywarp
“Masculinity is not a sexuality.”
masculinity – possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men.
The sex that you identify as is part of your sexuality. I’d love to see you tell trans people otherwise.
“This is exacerbated by toxic masculinity”
I know, masculinity even causes Ebola and SIDS. We should ban it before it kills us all…
“You don’t understand what social construct means either, do you? Masculinity itself is a social construct; toxic masculinity is a label for the harmful effects that an enforced narrow conception of masculinity has.”
The notion that sexual roles should be abandoned is another social construct.
That’s a good question, and I think it comes down to the fact that I find the scent to be rewarding in and of itself, and lighting a candle takes only seconds and the scent can then be enjoyed while I do other things, whereas putting together a batch of cinnamon rolls takes hours and requires a lot of standing-up-in-the-kitchen time.
Obviously if you don’t think the scent is valuable by itself, your metric is going to be different.
@cassandrakitty
Carrying children is.
So you’re OK with boys being shamed and even beaten for doing “girly” things like playing with dolls or crying? You’re OK with your son bottling up all his feelings because it’s not masculine to cry? You’re OK with your son being sick or even killing himself because Real Men don’t ask for help?
OFFICIAL MODERATOR WARNING: stop using developmental disabilities as an insult. Do it again and you’re out of this thread.
Seahorse reproduction is actually rather interesting. Apparently there’s a principle called “Bateman’s principle.” As far as I can tell, the basic idea is that the agressive behavior of a species is exhibited by the sex that has the least costly (energy-wise) role in reproduction.
Despite males both carrying eggs to gestation, apparently there was an experiment that showed the energy cost to the females was still higher, so it would be expected that the males would still fight over the females.
Cool stuff. Sadly, not very applicable to a species that has language and self reflection.
Are all straight men born masculine, t1oracle?
And what does that word actually mean?
Just cross out the “both” word, artifact of rewriting my sentence.
No, wiping the child’s bottom and getting it dressed for school in the morning is part of a gender role, gestating it is just biology.
I’d give bacon a go, but I’m more of a flowery-scents person when it comes to candles. Moringa is lovely 🙂
@t1oracle
You attempted armchair diagnosing and gave completely unsolicited medical advice. That is insulting. Just saying it isn’t does not, in fact, make it not insulting.
My favorite scented candle is Party Lites plum and lotus flower. I’m not sure if they still make them. I’ve had them for years and have only gotten through half because I hoard my candles.
I like floral candles too. I mostly burn them when I’m showering or taking a bath at night so I’m usually going for soothing rather than stimulating, since I’m about to go to sleep.
@t1oracle:
See that phrase “traditionally associated?” That’s a social thing, not strictly a biological thing.
As for the rest, fuck it. It is way too densely packed full of wrong; parsing it would take all day. Just… kudos for invoking trans folks while simultaneously laying the groundwork underlying every transphobic argument in existence.
Wow. The fractal wrongness. It’s wrong… all the way down.
There isn’t a single word or concept that you actually grasp the actual meaning and usage of, is there?
Gender identity, gender roles, sex assignment at birth, chromosomal arrangement, phenotype expression of secondary sex characteristics, gender expression, sexuality, sexual orientation… these are all very different, but intersecting concepts. It’s like you’re standing at the crossroads and have no idea which way is which.
Effective trolling requires subtlety, dude.
I’m waiting for him to inform us that having breasts is a gender role, tbh.
@fromafar2013:
More like he’s standing at a crossroads, declaring that despite all evidence to the contrary there is only one road. And that road points towards the sky.
“So you’re OK with boys being shamed and even beaten for doing “girly” things like playing with dolls or crying?”
No
“You’re OK with your son bottling up all his feelings because it’s not masculine to cry?”
That’s up to him. I didn’t cry much growing up, not even at funerals. Not everyone expresses themselves through tears. I wrote poetry to convey my emotions.
“You’re OK with your son being sick or even killing himself because Real Men don’t ask for help?”
Absolutely not.
Are you OK with boys being told that wanting to play with toy trucks is wrong? Are you OK with boys being told that playing aggressive sports will make them violent? Are you OK with boys being shamed for wanting to be competitive? Are you OK with boys being profiled by police for mischief because they are male? Are you OK with boys being shamed because they don’t cry as much as you do? Are you OK with boys being so sheltered from the real world that the moment they leave their parents home they unable to adapt and survive on their own?
Masculinity is not about violence, or crying, or not asking for help. Masculinity is about not giving up because something is difficult, wanting to be the best that you can be, having the confidence to confront fear, and being ready to sacrifice yourself to protect others. Women are just capable of these same feats, but these things are central to the masculine identity. Even the seahorses follow these patterns. The female seahorses don’t compete for mates, the males do.
“OFFICIAL MODERATOR WARNING: stop using developmental disabilities as an insult. Do it again and you’re out of this thread.”
Oh no, here comes the censorship police. Where were you when I was being insulted? Where where you when I specially stated “I do not want to be mean?” This so convenient for you isn’t it? It’s ok. I have screen caps for months and enough distribution channels at my disposal.