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.
“Girls like dolls because they learn to talk earlier” should go in the hall of troll fail lulz for sure.
@DJG
“Self-sacrificing? I thought anti-feminists were against the concept of the disposable male. This one must be some variation of tradcon.”
I am not anti-anything. I am pro-equality. For both males, females, and every variation in between.
Wow, following this thread is like reading a C.H.I.P.S. (gender division) episode of WHTM. Which one’s Ponch and which one’s Jon?
Oooh! Ooh! If humans are supposed to model our behavior after other primates, can we be Bonobos?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo
“This [intra group violence] does not appear to be the behavior of bonobo males or females, which seem to prefer sexual contact over violent confrontation with outsiders. In fact, the Japanese scientists who have spent the most time working with wild bonobos describe the species as extraordinarily peaceful, and de Waal has documented how bonobos may often resolve conflicts with sexual contact (hence the “make love, not war” characterization for the species). Between groups, social mingling may occur, in which members of different communities have sex and groom each other, behavior which is unheard of among common chimpanzees. Conflict is still possible between rival groups of bonobos, but no official scientific reports of it exist.”
@cassandrakitty:
Especially since t1oracle just got finished saying femininity is all about caring and empathy and nurturing. Wouldn’t the path of least resistance be “girls like dolls because they are inherently little mothers-in-training”? It’s like he had to go out of his way to make a novel argument fail.
Speaking of femininity, I’m still waiting for t1oracle to explain if his civility is feminine or not.
Both these three things…
I thought human beings were suits filled with cats or ferrets. Or is that just David?
@cassandrakitty
You have presented nothing but off topic posts, incessant insults, and off hand comments. You refuse to read responses, you claim they are too long and boring, and yet I am the troll?
How should one characterize such behavior?
Yep, I thought I’d make it something more feminine, hence the purple.
(It is Khoshekh from Welcome to Night Vale.)
I believe “mockery” is the word you are looking for. Do look it up before you try using it in a sentence, we wouldn’t want a repeat of the “both” incident.
Thanks Emmy Rae!
I thought I’d switch from Ser Pounce from Game of Thrones to one of my own kitties. I went with Dracarys because she’s female. Misandry!
@kirbywarp
Do you understand human evolution? Tell me, what is the primary factor that influences the evolution of a species?
@cassandrakitty
Because mockery isn’t a well known troll tactic?
But she isn’t pink or purple, how are we supposed to know that she’s feminine?
What a misandrilicious kitty. She looks like she came and nuzzled up to the camera immediately following the pic.
Aww, Dracarys! How adorbs!
@weirwoodtreehugger
I’m sorry, which part of that was related to the topic? Could you explain how that post isn’t trolling?
t1oracle:
Read the banner of the site you’re on. Get back to us when the penny drops.
@JV
You specifically show that you don’t know which of “femininity” or “feminism” is the female corollary of “masculinity”, proving you have no clue what either of those words mean. Dear gods, go find a dictionary.
@ t1oracle
You aren’t stupid necessarily, you just have a very surface level shallow understanding and a very daytime TV level of knowledge about things like sex and gender and patriarchy and masculinity/femininity and are trying to pass yourself off as an expert. And we aren’t buying it.
It’s like you watched that one documentary on Netflix about the large hadron collider and are getting mad that your application to work for CERN was outright rejected on the basis of you having no actual knowledge about quantum physics.
The getting mad part and the insisting that “I do know what I’m talking about!” is what we’re mocking.
Emmy Rae, how dare you go off topic! Now we just have to figure out whether going off topic is a masculine or feminine behavior, so we can figure out whether or not to hate you.
Oh look, more troll posts. Thanks for advancing this discussion. It’s almost like you actually have respect or something.
@t1oracle:
Holy discontinuity, batman! How about some blockquotes so that I know what you’re responding to? Please? Pretty please?
As for “human evolution,” which is no different than any other evolution, yes, I do understand it. Not greatly, mind you, I’m not a biologist. Much more than you, I’d wager. Especially given your question. A species has to have offspring to evolve at all, but mutation and environmental selection of phenotypes is what makes evolution actually happen. Which answer were you looking for, and how was it relevant?
The NO U part of a trolling expedition is always the least interesting bit. Do try harder, dude.
t1oracle: I’m sorry, which part of that was related to the topic? Could you explain how that post isn’t trolling?
It’s part of the ongoing conversation in this community among people who care about cats…
@fromafar2013
I don’t need a degree in feminism to know what masculinity is. I don’t need a degree in feminism to find the term “toxic masculinity” personally offensive. I don’t need any form of expertise or credentials to have valid feelings as a human being.