Yellow Peril: Are you gonna liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression?
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Hence the vulnerable note in Finn's post above. Finn seems to want to sound a "me too" idea in his story about his friend, and "it wasn't me" in response to the whole discussion that Tze Ming has raised. Finn, everyone here knows it wasn't you, and I suspect that most people here, like me, were saddened, even appalled, by the account you gave us of what happened to your friend. Here's the thing - making it clear that you don't support what is happening, doesn't stop it happening.
Good god. On the one hand we have long posts about how the use of masculine adjectives to describe prose is all tied into gender politics, on the other hand sounding a "vulnerable note" somehow provides a world of subtext for you to read all manner of conclusions from.
You know, I don't really put enough time into the posts I write to justify reading between the lines to quite such a depth. I'm a pretty shallow guy. If I was sounding "vulnerable" perhaps that was just an attempt at being polite given I'm a) new here and b) commenting in a thread where gender politics is seemingly being forcibly inserted into anything in sight, whether it fits particularly well or not?
If I raised an example it was not to demonstrate that I'm a jolly nice fellow, it was to demonstrate that abuse is abuse, regardless of gender - if you put your opinions and your real-world credentials on public display and the wrong people take a disliking to you they can be very, very nasty to you.
My point being: The actions are the same, the situation the same, the results the same. So why treat the problem differently just because the recipients of the abuse are female? Why talk of "Taking back" blogs for female audiences? I don't get that, sorry. Either you're interested in the problem of online abuse/stalking regardless of the victim (and viable social and technological solutions to the issue) or you're not - I don't see that being specifically and exclusively interested in the problem for a particular group of victims is a very practically useful position, sloganeering aside.
Shorter: What Juha said.
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With regard to death threats- or any such direct threats against one's person: It'd creep me out completely. I'd report it, too. Lying awake at night listening for creaks and scuffles is a crap life. And for all that you can reassure yourself it's not likely anything will really happen, knowing someone out there there has thought these thoughts about you is creepy too.
There's a connection, we all know it- not direct or simple or linear, necessarily, but a connection- between thinking thoughts and doing deeds.
In that respect, it might be good if some of the fabled "anonymity" of the net were exploded. Most people probably know deep-down that pretty well anything you do on the net- any e-mail you send, comment you post- can, unless you're making efforts- be traced back to you. And they also know it won't be. A lot of the worst behaviour (and some of the fun!:-) would disappear overnight if the perps knew their real names would magically (techno-magically!) appear next to their comment/blog post next day. -
A lot of the worst behaviour (and some of the fun!:-) would disappear overnight if the perps knew their real names would magically (techno-magically!) appear next to their comment/blog post next day.
Amen to that - which is pretty much the 'crap life' visited on Kathy Sierra by those 'perps' who published her home address and social security number. As so many here have said, I'd be devastated/ballistic/whatever if it happened to me/someone close to me. Thanks for a marvellous Sunday's worth of thoughtful and generous posts, but it still creeps me out to think about what was done to Sierra.
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OK Tze you have convinced me. Time to start commenting and not just watching from the wings.
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aaagh!! i hate that i came to this thread so late... been busy all weekend. and i can't believe i turned off "sleeping dogs" to read it, but it seems to be just too important, and have too many wonderful contributions. thanx tze ming for your post that started this great discussion.
i'm not sure that i have a lot to add. i don't ever log on to kiwiblog anymore, though i did go through a period of reading it. but i can't do it any more. it's too depressing, and the bigotry does hurt. rich, it's easy to tell us to ignore the words, but i can't. not only because the words hurt personally but also because i feel powerless against them.
that's part of the reason why i never get involved in threads about muslims. they are so many negative and really harsh voices, yes even on pa, and i feel like a lone battler who can't possibly take them all on. i watched manakura (sp?) doing it last year around maori issues, watched him singlehandedly take on heaps of people and win. win in the sense that he managed to change opinions and make others see things in a new light. and he won respect - well, mine definitely. but he must have spent hours and hours doing it.
for myself, i just don't have the time and energy to do the same thing. i have 2 kids to bring up, a home to take care of, a job, 3 trusts i'm a trustee of, and a nascent political career that may or may not go anywhere. i have to be mindful that anything i ever say or write can and will be used by political opponents to attack me, now or years later. or by ian wishart wannabe's to make out i'm some kind of terrorist sympathiser or straight-out terrorist (or whatever other nasty label they can throw at me).
mostly though, i'm just tired. i spend most of my days feeling exhausted, so i only post when the topic excites me enough to overcome the tiredness! but the kind of research and hours it would take to get into an indepth debate around, say muslim issues, is just beyond my capacity. so i leave it, and try to make a difference in other ways - like interfaith forums, public speaking etc. yes, these also take a lot of time and energy, but the fact is that people say things on the web that they would never have the guts to say face-to-face, which is why these other activities seem less threatening.
in terms of misogyny, i've never been attacked for my gender. i also haven't yet received hate mail (alhamdolillah). but i have to agree with you tze ming, that gender abuse is an issue and a serious one. whether or not the threats are real, they are frightening, and we shouldn't have to put up with them.
so, i'd love to contribute more. but it's down to time, and to not being tough enough to take a lot of negativity.
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Sue,
Out of interest, has anyone *ever* been physically attacked or even approached by anyone in NZ as a result of Internet discussion?
Does it really matter?
is abuse only bad if it's physical? -
that's part of the reason why i never get involved in threads about muslims. they are so many negative and really harsh voices, yes even on pa, and i feel like a lone battler who can't possibly take them all on.
There were some discussions a few months ago in which rampant Islamophobia was left pretty much unchallenged except by me and Simon Grigg. After a while you just start to think, "Why aren't other people pulling them up on this stuff?" Eventually you just start to think, "Why am I wasting my time when no one gives a shit?"
And to those offended by the "white boys' playgound" quip: You are easily offended by...the truth...it is a male caucasian-dominated arena for social intercourse. get over it!
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does this thread get extra credit for inspiring some of the longest posts on PA?
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Jumping out from the shadows (but only briefly) ...
I haven't commented on PA System that often, some of it has to do with being away from NZ, some of it has to do with not being too fired up issues raised (one notable exception being the thread that would never die), and because the reponsibility I had with my previous job, I didn't want to out myself (anonymity wouldn't have helped me).
On reflection I have to admit that I pay more attention to your posts Tze Ming because you pick up on issues that no one else on PA does. I remember the day of the Diwali Mumbai bombs being a turning point in my political reflections on NZ. No one except you, (mainstream, alternative media or otherwise in NZ) seemed to comment about it and that made me very upset (which is another tale, for another time). If I had a blog at the time I probably would have blogged about it but I didn't.
As it stands right now, I don't blog about political issues for a number of reasons: because I'm not home where I understand the system better; I'm tired of fighting the same fight over and over again; I'll choose another medium to express my throughts; or more often than not someone is saying it much better than me (like Sepia Mutiny, Reappropriate or your good self).
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Finn said:
Why talk of "Taking back" blogs ...? I don't get that, sorry.
However the thread has been skewed in various directions, the Take Back the Blog blogswarm is a symbolic online event to express solidarity with female bloggers who have been subjected to harassment, intimidation and threats of violence. If Finn really doesn't get that... well, wow - I'm sorry too!
On the upside, it's always good to see Sonal; I second Anjum's props to Manakura for holding out as long as he did; and thanks to the rare appearances, first time postings, and thoughtful tomes from women PA readers generally on this thread. I appreciate you being here.
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Ultimately, dude, this post wasn't about you; it was about us. I hope you can get over it.
Hmmm ... "get over it" ...
Tze Ming, Steven's initial post was sincere, and your answer -- "precious", "not about you", "sad", "perceived slight" -- was dismissive and somewhat bullying in tone. Muscular, perhaps.
And I missed the part about the thread being "obviously dedicated to the women of PA being able to talk about their experiences of the internet." If you wrote it - and you used the phrase "white boys" three times - and someone wants to say something about it, I think they have the right to do so without being belittled.
In answer to a question in your post, yes, PA does skew white and male, although not dramatically so. The biggest departure from the general population is in income (high) and professional qualifications.
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However the thread has been skewed in various directions, the Take Back the Blog blogswarm is a symbolic online event to express solidarity with female bloggers who have been subjected to harassment, intimidation and threats of violence ...
I assume it's an adaptation of the "Take back the night" mobilisations against sexual violence. Nice idea.
On the upside, it's always good to see Sonal; I second Anjum's props to Manakura for holding out as long as he did;
Eh? I'm not sure Manakura was "holding out" against much. He's very well liked around here and was frequently complimented for his posts. He even won the Flying Nun box set! I'm sure there was a fatigue factor, in that there was a lot of content in his posts. but I don't think he faced any more attrition than anyone else.
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However the thread has been skewed in various directions, the Take Back the Blog blogswarm is a symbolic online event to express solidarity with female bloggers who have been subjected to harassment, intimidation and threats of violence. If Finn really doesn't get that... well, wow - I'm sorry too!
Thanks for removing the context in the quote.
I don't get the idea of a symbolic online event to exclusively express solidarity with female bloggers who have been subjected to harassment etc, when there's plenty of bloggers who aren't female who're victims of the exact same behavior. Why arbitrarily restrict your solidarity? What's that supposed to symbolise? I'm not a fan of dividing up society by gender, and this seems like a division being made when the problem is wider. Does your solidarity exclude Islamic men, who're the subjects of far worse abuse on the internet than women, collectively, in mainstream political discourse right now? If so, why?
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I don't get the idea of a symbolic online event to exclusively express solidarity with female bloggers who have been subjected to harassment etc, when there's plenty of bloggers who aren't female who're victims of the exact same behavior. Why arbitrarily restrict your solidarity?
Because protests against, say, "all bad things" tend to lack focus. In the context of recent events, it's both logical and reasonable for a group of bloggers to express solidarity with women online.
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WH,
On reflection I have to admit that I pay more attention to your posts Tze Ming because you pick up on issues that no one else on PA does.
Ditto that. Tze Ming's work is always interesting, even if I am part of the white male corporate oppression she is writing about.
Although one person's flippant comment is another's insulting provocation, if one was to focus on that one might miss the other things she is trying to say. Its a mistake I often have to battle my own instincts to avoid (unsuccessfully, more often that not).
I find expressing disagreement is tricky (whether socially or online) because you don't want to shut down a unique point of view or hurt anyone's feelings but there is always that aspect to it. As Span mentioned, comments often get skewed to points of disagreement, and don't focus so much on the thoughts and feelings that people might share.
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Alert! White Boy chiming in...
Away from my desk last week, or I would have come to this sooner...
Tze Ming, I think the root of the offence that some of the other white boy's here have taken is that, to throw a blanket term over all white males unfairly drags us into the company of those we do not want to identify with.
I do not consider myself as part of the same subset of people as George W. Bush, for example, or Gerry Brownlee, or the National Front munters. I use other identifiers to define myself.
Being white and male does not mean I feel I have anything in common with other white males. If by being a white boy, I am required to fit the same subset as Byron Kelleher, do you as a yellow girl have to fit the same subset as his wife, Singapore-born ex-porn star Kaylani Lei?
At university, I hit some negativity early on from both lecturers and fellow students who, seeing only my 'white boy'-ness, assumed I had nothing to say that they wanted to hear. So I kept saying what I had to say, and eventually they realised they were wrong to assume anything based on race and gender.
Big deal, some might say, welcome to the world of the minority. But I can clearly remember the way a particular self-identified feminist lecturer would physically react when I put my hand up before she got to know me. I could see her bracing herself to rebutt what I said before I even opened my mouth. I didn't like the way that made me feel.
And I think that's the crux of the issue here - by calling someone by a loaded name - and "white boy" IS a loaded name - you can hurt them. If that someone is Kyle Chapman (for example), the attack may be justified but, ironically, the bullet won't wound. If that someone is me, Che Tibby, RB, Steven Crawford, or anyone who feels they have tried hard to overcome the dark side of their white-boy-ness, so to speak, the attack hits AND it hurts.
Feel free to suggest I get over it - I have a stromg enough sense of self that this stuff isn't ruining my day - but I'm just trying (probably poorly) to show the view from the other side.
Christ that was a long post. -
Christ that was a long post.
It's the Curse of Tze Ming: long posts, and long threads with a notably high poster-to-lurker ratio. This is a good thing.
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Out of interest, has anyone *ever* been physically attacked or even approached by anyone in NZ as a result of Internet discussion?
Not internet, but as a result of a letter I wrote to the DomPost a few years back, I received a hand delivered letter full of gibberish & warnings from someone purporting to be god (that'll teach me to criticise the SPCS).
It was harmless, indeed highly amusing, but I was unnerved that someone took the trouble to look me up in the phone book & visit.
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Out of interest, has anyone *ever* been physically attacked or even approached by anyone in NZ as a result of Internet discussion?
I get bailed up by strangers fairly often, which is usually gratifying and cool.
But I've also had a couple of people obtain my phone number by deceit and call and talk to family members when I'm out. I didn't like that.
I seem to recall getting the strange hand-delivered letter once too.
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There have been times I've been very glad that I live in NZ, and the effort required from the odd freak who can't tell me from my role-playing character to seriously RL-stalk me is prohibitively huge.
I don't think anyone wants to trivialise real-life physical violence: at least with on-line harassment, you always have the option to switch off and walk away. But the damage done by verbal harassment is still real. I once got an email so amazingly abusive it made me cry for three days. From a woman, who was employing me at the time.
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I seem to recall getting the strange hand-delivered letter once too.
Anything like http://sunnyo.blogspot.com/2005/03/god-mispelled-my-name.html?
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That should have been a clever link displayed simply as "this one?"
Oh well.
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I once got an email so amazingly abusive it made me cry for three days. From a woman, who was employing me at the time.
The most outrageously abusive email I've ever had was from Nick Wood, after I wrote a story based on a highly abusive Ihug staff memo someone leaked to me.
It was so OTT it was hard to take seriously, although I did briefly worry that he'd do something silly with my internet.
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Rich said:
If I'm right, it's reasonable to assume that anyone who threatens you is no more likely to take on physical form than the characters in a video game. So treat the nasty people as a string of bits, delete their outpourings and move on.
For a few weeks I was the target of a string of abusive emails & forum comments. It wasn't any kind of random misogyny but a personal matter, it could be argued that I deserved it. I also knew the person sending the emails wasn't going to follow through. Over the course of those weeks, I stopped going out, I'd rush home from work in the dark with my hood up, and I'd sit alone in my room with the lights off. It really annoyed and frustrated me for being so affected by "a string of bits", but that was my life for a month, and no amount of trying to shake it off worked. I simply dreaded going outside. It may not seem rational, but those kind of threats are the abuse.
Personally I've often had the tendency to fob off feminist opinion as hysterical hypersensitivity (it doesn't help when they all seem so angry). My first reaction was the same as Finn's - that it's not a male/female thing, but an arsehole thing, and that sex just happens to be a convenient target.I think that's because I've never been a victim of any kind of sexual discrimination (I'm not sure why that is, lucky me). I've only started understanding that misogyny actually exists (and is whole lot more nuanced than my original, rather blunt understanding) by reading feminist blogs that are heavy on real-life examples. I think that's what causes at least some of the division in this topic - that it's difficult to acknowledge that a problem exists, and the impact it has, if you've never really been exposed to something that you can specifically identify as that problem. It's telling that Finn describes the distinction (women vs other bullied people) as "arbitrary".
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