Letters to the Editor
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-- david sugarman
Try smoking less dope before you post.
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I just think if you keep presenting Ayelet Waldman, Annie LaMott, and the like, as bona fide reps of the "female/feminist experience and mindset,"
.... you're gonna find you continue to get hammered, and for good reason.
My sense of Joan Walsh's grasp of the "modern woman" is strangely anchored if not trapped by her own very white, very left, very up-market experience. That's MY objection to many of the silly articles/authors she features.
I liken it to the rage you tend to feel when confronted with a really self-absorbed narcissist. The narcissist is really good at pushing those buttons. Yes, it's incumbent upon all of us to respond civilly, but when you're reluctantly entangled with narcissistic crap like that, it's really, really hard.
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Thank You
I am 76 and years old and fought with other women for equal rights my 4 daughters and 3 granddaughters take for granted. However, they have fought and continue to fight for new rights to be extended in new situations just as you and Ms. Sierra are doing. Those who believe in equal rights cannot ignore that lives have been lost in the effort and should not ignore Ms. Sierra's fear.
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Don't worry about it.
This graphic should explain why most people online act so hateful (besides the fact that they're bored, idiotic, and frustrated):
http://members.aol.com/vaylonkenadell/farkwad.jpg
But, from a sociological standpoint, there is still very much a demand of males in the United States and elsewhere to be and act masculine; this requires, of course, a group who we can define as not masculine -- of whom "masculinity" is robbed. It's more complicated than that, but I hope you'll understand my brevity.
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting take on it.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/11/taranto/index.html
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major credibility there
I happen to be that person everyone compulsively tells their life stories to, which means I've heard some of these stories from women who have told no one else. But the stories are out there. -- Allie
Oh, now I'm convinced, because you sound so skeptical and statistically minded, and totally typical. In no way glib, impressionable, and anecdotal.
(why do some women get flamed on the internet for making absurdly sexist claims? Oh right, cause everyone is a misogynist.)
Btw, I notice some women posting here don't seem terribly bright or logical, are prone to generalizations and name calling, and like to drop words like misogynistic. But hey, I wouldn't generalize all women are airheads, because that would be stupid.
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Getting Real with Women on the Web
I've been following the Kathy Sierra matter pretty sure I was in her and Scoble's camp, but this piece by Joan Walsh finally put it all into perspective for me. Your honesty in tracing the trajectory of your reactions was the key, so thank you for daring to admit uneasiness with Kathy's startling expressions of fear.
What I have gained in all this is a big increase in empathy for women on the web. I've had my own worry about using my name most places I appear on the web, and someone I mentioned this to said, "You're probably not at risk, but I wouldn't say that if you were a woman or a child." I'd never really thought about how men have a special kind of privilege on the web--freedom, in most cases, from automatic sexualization and attack by this minority of sickos. I've taken my privilege for granted until Kathy Sierra.
What's scarier to look at is my own view of women on the web, but inspired by your honesty I'll venture forward. As a straight man, sexualizing women in any situation is something I deal with. If a woman is attractive, certain old scripts kick in from boyhood, a mixture of desire and fear, a creation of projected images having nothing to do with the reality of an individual human. What's good is when real connections--a conversation, a shared insight, a smile--shatter the distortion field of sexual projection and I wake up to find myself enjoying the presence of a real person instead of a sexual object. Perhaps why the web is a scarier place for these matters is there is less opportunity to make the human connection. You have to do it completely in written words, unless you're listening to or watching a podcast. So there are fewer cues to help break the grip of the sexualizing, objectifying spell.
This may be why Kathy's ordeal is so powerful. For me, as a straight man, it helps to see real people behind the images on my MacBook Pro screen. And if lots of men, from Scoble on down to the less visible male citizens of the web, experience this waking up, then maybe the web will become a slightly more human and humane space for all of us.
The topic I wasn't going to mention here is pornography. How does what Kathy Sierra and others suffer on the web relate to the torrent of images flowing round the internet designed to arouse sexual fire? I'd love to hear Camille Paglia on this topic, and I don't think every man who has ever ventured into this torrent to see what's there and--dare I say it?--enjoy its dark thrills once in a while, becomes, by definition, a member of the sickos, a fellow traveler with those who confuse sexual fantasy with appropriate ways of communicating with real women. But you have to wonder if pornography somehow comes into play when we're trying to get at what's going on between men and women on the internet.
Beyond Kathy Sierra's brave publicizing of the issue, I see other trends that may help. For me, Twitter has provided more intimate connections with people on the internet. It's hard to sexualize someone who's just posted 140 characters about how her infant just showered her with poop while she was getting ready to give a lecture. Twitter posts feel more real, and closer than blog entries. One thing I've noticed on Twitter is, so far, a complete lack of posts by sexual trolls. Maybe there are gatekeepers catching the bad stuff, but I don't think so, because you can watch the flow in nearly real time, and I've never seen a single objectionable post. Quite the reverse, and the first time I heard about Kathy Sierra was from a woman Twittering in Switzerland about how she felt sick about it, and reading her Tweet, so did I.
Another new site, Me.dium, gives you a chance to chat with real people as you visit the same web sites. Last night I found myself on a site with a password that another Me.dium member was visiting. I sent her a message and asked what it was. She sent me a password, and for a moment I felt scared to try it, fearing she might be a some kind of temptress, about to lure me somewhere I didn't want to go. So I was LOL when it turned out to be a site where she was tracking her baby's sleep patterns, hoping to find ways to get more than 45 minutes of sleep at a time. We visited online for about 20 minutes, traveling to my latest podcast upload, which she listened to as we were chatting. It was very weird, and very good.
When we have more and better internet tools with which to connnect and be real with each other, maybe there will be less chance of getting trapped in the trance of our ancient fears and obsessions. Wizards like the folks at Me.dium and Twitter seem to be working round the clock to give us these new opportunites to be real, and thus, maybe--decent.