Trigger warning for quoted harassment and threats in the entry and links.
On Twitter, Sady Doyle has created a #mencallmethings tag:
The thing is, name-calling DOES have an impact. It’s a continual message that your voice is not legitimate & using it will only hurt you.
Threats are scary and all, but we’d have a field day if every woman and anti-sexist person online listed the names they were called.
AND THUS, I SHALL NOW DO SO. Shrieky. Screechy. Hysterical. Professional victim. Pathological victim. Hypersensitive. #mencallmethings
Feminist writers are thus tweeting some of the abuse they have received on the #mencallmethings tag. As Jill of Feministe puts it:
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to spend a day in the glamorous life of a feminist blogger? Check out #mencallmethings on Twitter… (Trigger warning for rape, violence and misogyny).
xx your favorite lesbian hambeast
Further commentary by Sady Doyle is up at Tiger Beatdown:
And yet, a sadness comes upon me. Now that I have regenerated, Whovianly, into my current form — all serious-faced and irritable and SAD TIMES ABOUT SEXISM — I find myself missing her carefree ways. Moreover, I find myself wondering how she pulled it off. How the Hell did she stay in such a good mood all the time? And I think I’ve found my answer: In 2009, I genuinely believed people were going to change their minds about being sexist, because they read my blog…
I hate to tell you this, friends. But I think my plan, it had a minor flaw. Which is: Misogynists don’t like women. It doesn’t matter how uniquely charming and witty and acquainted with various fine bourbons you are. Are you a woman? Then they don’t like you. And they especially don’t like you telling them what to do. By, for example, asking them to cut it out with the misogyny.
In fourteen hours, it’s already made it to the Australian mainstream media, where I actually learned of it. I am clearly off my blogger game here.
Congratulations on making it to mainstream media!
What I learned from reading these tweets is that a lot of men were thinking that women and men are being trolled in the same way and now they’ve seen how much worse comments for women are. We need more media attention. If Twitter is powerful enough for getting into Australian media… well, it’s just a matter of time to get to American media.
It got into English media as well:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/nov/08/women-sexist-abuse-online?INTCMP=SRCH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/abusive-sexist-comments-online?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487