Are there any men who read Broadsheet for any OTHER reason than that they hate women and want to troll the women's issue pages?

I don't think anyone hates women here. I think you are blaming the victim.

In post after post as we've seen women make the most horrible comments about men, and blame many of the world's and women's problems on men.

Why is considered hating on women for men and women to say "no" to that sort of idiocy and abuse?

Why is it okay for women to require a protected space on the internet from which they can post patent nonsense and expect to get away with it?

Wouldn't you prefer your comments get a wide audience and a thorough vetting? Don't you appreciate feedback?

How can you simultaneously complain that men don't listen to you at the same time you are telling men to go away and stop reading what you have to write?

Do you want equality, or do you want something else? What is it that you want?

As was feared when you retained your Anonymous posting option, this thread is littered with ranting screeds from anonymous posters who are too cowardly to stand by their words. I understand your desire to allow people to post sensitive material without it being linked to them in real life, but as expected 90% of the time it's being used by flamers and pissants to hide their face while they shout their drivel.

The anonymous comments help keep this conversation real, interesting, and on track.

Is anyone being threatened ala Kathy Sierra? Is anyone being stalked? Are people being abusive? No, no, and no.

I assume that Broadsheet readers and commenters have similar demographics to the rest of Salon's readers, which is to say they are largely progressive liberal individuals. What we are seeing through anonymous comments is that:

a) There are women that are very radical feminists indeed

b) There are men and women that think that feminism has gone from seeking equity to seeking superiority

c) There are lots of men and women ignorant about their culture, their philosophies, and the world

d) There are lots of men and women able to make heart felt, well thought out comments anonymously, that they would be afraid to place their name next to

e) and a, b, and d would be speech that would be impossible without anonymity and even pseudonymity.

I see only one population upset with the anonymous posting here, and that is a group of people that want to direct the agenda and direct the conversation in specific directions.

If Howard is upset by the speech here, he is welcome to read many of the blogs that Broadsheet blogrolls that practice the censorship he seeks by having blogowners that delete comments, change comments, mock and abuse commenters, and ban commenters they dislike. Pandagon, I Blame the Patriarchy, Feministing, Feministe, Alas a Blog -- is there a single feminist blog that doesn't have egregious comment moderation?

Howard can ponder why women need "protected spaces" on the Internet, when the notion of "protected spaces" came from meat space in which women that spoke up could be and would be physically attacked.

Howard, does the comment moderation that exists at most feminist blogs help feminism progress, or does it help blind it to honest valid criticism and thus hurt feminism's progress?

Please reconsider removing the option. The loss of the few times it would be used legitimately certainly offsets the egregious abuse of it as it currently stands.

One of the arguments the authoritarians that hate anonymous speech always bring up is how few times it is used legitimately. We've even seen this recently in response to the Kathy Sierra fiasco, mentioned by citizens of a country with anonymous authors like Publius as its founder, mentioned by prominent journalists that like all of us, enjoy Freedom of the Press, but don't realize the first Amendment says nothing about identification.

Indeed, over and over, the courts have recognized the importance of anonymous speech:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/

Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius," and "the Federal Farmer" spoke up in rebuttal. The US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized rights to speak anonymously derived from the First Amendment.

The right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page. Thus, in 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the Mayor's office before going door-to-door.

These long-standing rights to anonymity and the protections it affords are critically important for the Internet. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Internet offers a new and powerful democratic forum in which anyone can become a "pamphleteer" or "a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been involved in the fight to protect the rights of anonymous speakers online. As one court observed, in a case handled by EFF along with the ACLU of Washington, "[T]he free exchange of ideas on the Internet is driven in large part by the ability of Internet users to communicate anonymously."

Howard, and others like him, should be ashamed of himself.