Letters to the Editor
-
Ladies, If You Can't Stand the Heat
Get back in the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans! :)
If you want to play with the boys you will have to put up with a certain amount of over-the-top BS. It goes with the territory.
Whining does not make you look strong.
-
dribblinggirl
Every medium invented by mankind has proven corruptible.
For every Jean Cocteau film...
I happen to believe... (happen to?)
No one loves smart discourse more than I do... (lol)
Of course, the unfortunate but not surprising... (yawn)
Sierra may have had the purest of intentions ... (gag)
But Sierra has run up against the hypocrisy of so-called "citizen journalism." ... (inane or obscure, I can't decide)
-- Runninggirl
Now, THATS a lotta nothin!
-
I think the problem is wider than just men who hate women
Is this how people treat each other when disconnected from any consequence for their actions? Are people only civil to each other because they are afraid of getting a beating?
I suggest that we no longer accept this. Don't ignore death threats on the web - call the police and demand action. Webmasters should set the standard, and simply delete posts that exist for no other reason than to display the ignorance of the person that wrote them.
I read Salon because of the intelligence of the writers, and I don't appreciate it being used as a message board by people who only want to hurt others with their words. Yesterday I read Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot article on flying in West Africa. I thought it was great. When I looked in the Comments section I ran across this:
What an egotistical bore you are. - Locutus
Salon has even archived this person's letters so I can read all of them if I want! I don't have any interest in reading the letters of those who would so casually insult someone else, and I don't understand why Salon would archive their letters, giving them a platform for their body of work as if they were real journalists. They're not. I read Salon for the journalism, not gutter insults.
-
Why hate wins.
I think the explosion of open community forums online, from blog comments to youtube to myspace to user-controlled editorial sites like digg.com has unmasked a disturbing trend of hate on the internet in general.
While it was always apparent that that the anonymity of the internet caused people to act out fantasies of sex/love/hate that they'd otherwise suppress - it would seem that hate has been the one truly universal lasting emotion on the web.
Whether this is a result of our confused, angry and polarized society or just the end result of an overly pampered, spoiled America -- the idiotic righteousness people display online has reached a boiling point and is causing the degradation of almost every site I've heretofore enjoyed.
You can see the hate all over the web, in many different forms - misogyny, racism and homophobia certainly rise to the top. On a lower level you get vitriolic hatred from PC users against Mac users -- a perfect display of the truly stupid depths to which people will sink just to find SOMETHING to hate in life.
I think women and people of color get the brunt of the hatred because we have, because of our misogynistic and racist past, a detailed social hand-book for how to cut right to the core and deeply offend both parties. Knowing how to push those buttons has become part of common instinct, because we've watched people struggle out of those stereotypes and we're keenly aware of what keeps them down. Our pop culture has also over-simplified the problems, causing a sort of dumbed-down rallying cry for and against growth and change. Try finding the hand-book for cutting to the core of straight, white men - you won't, because it doesn't exist.
The web has become a sort of 24/7 customer complaint line. Those with an ounce of intelligence complain in the form of detailed opinions. Those without (sadly, the masses) complain using their ape-like understanding of the world.
-
Stand Up
I can tell by the tone of some of the comments to this article that Walsh's point is proven:
"hysterical masculine self-pity posing as righteous indignation"
From my experience, particularly in progressive academia, there is almost no limit to the degree to which men will put down "strident" and "outspoken" women around them. Without women around, men will indulge themselves in all sorts of misogyny. The Internet is a medium of expression for this par excellence.
While not in the business of giving advice, the only thing I can recommend to Kathy Sierra and other women who endure this unacceptable behavior is to continue doing what you are doing. While it may sound extreme, the only way of keeping your freedom is to live freely, in the face of fear, even if it puts you in danger.
-
"Ross Johnson"
you can't judge anyone from one comment. i've had an intensive dialog with Locutus and i can tell you he is a very thoughtful man. willing to converse sincerely with someone totally on the other side of the world of experience from himself. i avoided vietnam. he served - as a scout (yes, that's *alone* in the jungle with enemies behind every (ok, not *every*) tree.) he's brave. he's sincere. he wishes to communicate and make those that don't agree, at least understand. i like locutus more than any other i've "met" on this forum. would you want an arbitrary comment to define you? now for something more agreeable to me, something abstract. do you*really* want to give the police that much power? ("Don't ignore death threats on the web - call the police and demand action." if actually acted upon would give police ALL the power to enforce social prohibitions). i, for one, don't want to live in a police state or an islamic republic. i'd rather take my lumps (and there've been *too* many) than have the state solve all my problems with people.
-
Thank you
I really appreciated your article, I am a female anthropology PhD student and there is actual scholarly literature that shows, why yes, women are silenced on the web. In academic online chatrooms and forums women are considered to be talking "too much" if they contribute more than 30% of the content. 30%. In the real world classroom one can always refuse to be silenced with an "excuse me, I was speaking" but not so much on the web. I have always especially enjoyed the work of the women writers on Salon who deal with issues (and feminism) in a coherent and thoughtful manner. Thank you so much and keep up the good work.