Tag: Misogyny

Via Katha Pollitt on Twitter – an Italian priest explains things to women.

Italian media reported that parish priest Piero Corsi fixed a text to the bulletin board of his church in the northern village of San Terenzo di Lerici, which said women should engage in “healthy self criticism” over the issue of femicide, or men murdering women.

Healthy self-criticism! Good thinking. It is a just world, so if a women is murdered, it has to be because she did something so bad that it deserves murder. (There is that whole pesky “sanctity of life” thing, so you would think a Catholic priest wouldn’t write a text saying that anything deserves murder, but maybe that’s just before birth. I’m not a theologian, so I’m not sure.) So what are these bad things that women should be healthily criticizing themselves for?

“Let’s ask ourselves. Is it possible that men have all gone mad at one stroke? We don’t think so,” said the text, which was reproduced in several newspapers.

“The core of the problem is in the fact that women are more and more provocative, they yield to arrogance, they believe they can do everything themselves and they end up exacerbating tensions,” it said.

“How often do we see girls and even mature women walking on the streets in provocative and tight clothing?”

“Babies left to themselves, dirty houses, cold meals and fast food at home, soiled clothes. So if a family ends up in a mess and turns into crime (a form of violence which should be condemned and punished firmly) often the responsibility is shared,” it said.

Oh. Women are arrogant. They walk on the street. Something something dirty something cold something fast something soiled. So men murder them. What can you expect?

It’s probably just a small thing though, right? Not many women are that cold and soiled and arrogant and murdered.

A third of women in Italy had reported being victim of serious domestic violence, a UN report citing data from Italian statistics agency ISTAT said.

It said that as many as 127 women had been murdered by men in 2010, often as a result of “honor, men’s unemployment and jealousy by the perpetrator”.

And fast food, and women walking on the street.

People are annoyed with the priest, but he doesn’t mind.

“After everything that’s happened, which has certainly been well beyond what I intended or expected, I think there’s need for calm, rest and silence to respond with the serenity and harmony required to carry on,” he said.

For him. He’s a guy, so he’s allowed to be arrogant. Women who are arrogant – well they need to be murdered, obviously.

David Futrelle points out A Voice for Men campaigning to terrorize a young woman they dislike. These guys are scary. Seriously scary:

AVfM is conducting outreach and investigation into the identities of the persons involved in the violent protest against the rights of men and boys orchestrated and conducted by the University of Toronto Student Union and other antisocial elements within that institution.

To that end, one individual has already been identified, and you will be seeing a story on her here in the near future. Our search for the woman highlighted in the video of the protest continues, with some leads. …

Gender ideologues absolutely hate the light of day. They hate it shining on their ideas and on their lies. Many of them also don’t want it shining on their identities. They seek anonymity for the same reason Klansmen wear hoods.

Futrelle points out a discrepancy:

Even beyond the vicious nature of AVFM’s language and tactics, the hypocrisy here is off the charts: most of AVFM’s writers – gender ideologues all – hide their identities behind pseudonyms, including of course JohnTheOther, who launched AVFM’s campaign against the still-unknown protester.

It’s all so very familiar.

Futrelle includes some of the threats left at YouTube:

Futrelle’s post was yesterday. Today they’ve posted a different woman’s name, along with a picture.

They’re scary.

Via Mona Eltahawy on Twitter – Pakistan has its “Twitterati” – “the artists, the journalists, the designers, the political analysts, the bloggers, the activists.” I follow quite a few of them myself.

But guess what – there’s a penalty. Of course there is.

But with fame comes the inevitable trolling. And unfortunately, if you’re in Pakistan, and you committed the gross crime against humanity of being born a woman, you’re a prime target. Any female professional in Pakistan who is active on Twitter will find herself vilified and harassed online simply because she is a woman who works, and (as is the case with many professionals) supports women’s rights and is a feminist. What’s alarming is that this trolling is not at all harmless tomfoolery. It is dangerous, violent, and misogynist to boot.

I first saw this form of violence against women when popular blogger, Mehreen Kasana, was the victim of a disgusting practical joke. Her head was photoshopped on an image of a woman dressed  in a “sexy” French maid outfit. Imagine the horror of waking up to find such an image all over the internet, hoping your siblings, cousins, relatives, etc. don’t come across that picture. I don’t know who was behind all of this, but it’s a disgusting thing, picking on women who happen to have a loud voice and state their opinions clearly and firmly.

I don’t have to imagine; I’ve had that: my head photoshopped onto a sexy body in a bikini, as punishment for constantly lying about how gorgeous and sexy I am.

Similar antics involved the activist Sana Saleem, where fake accounts with obscene names masqueraded as her, tweeting vile things about her, and even worst, these accounts would keep cropping  up as soon as one was shut down. It is a testament to Sana’s courage and resilience, because there is only so many times you can tell yourself that this is meaningless.

We’ve all had that – all of us who are objects of the misogynist campaign.

What is disappointing is that no one will view this as violence against women. No one will say that this is cyber harassment. No, if these women even dare to call this cyber harassment, they will be called attention-seekers, whiners, immature. Every time a woman is attacked, and she fights back, she is the one who is vilified.

Check, check, check. Not, to be sure, the “no one” part; no, in our case it’s far from no one. But it is a lot fewer people than we would have thought.

Well – solidarity forever, and all that.

Comment is Free held a little discussion of “what is misogyny?” the other day.

An Australian dictionary has changed its definition of misogyny to reflect the fact that it is now used to mean ‘entrenched prejudice against women’, not just hatred of them. Six feminists tell us what the term means to them.

Ok wait a minute. Is “entrenched prejudice against” really all that different from hatred of? Isn’t entrenched prejudice against one way of saying “hatred”? It’s not clear to me that the two are completely different.

I’ve been seeing people trying to claim that misogyny is hatred of all women, so that being married to a woman demonstrates freedom from misogyny. That’s not right. It’s never meant that as far as I can remember (and that’s well into the 14th century). One, married people can hate their spouses, but two, misogyny can encompass men who have one or a few exceptions.

Misogyny is contempt, dismissal, hostility, disregard. It’s not just shouting “I hate all women!”

Naomi Wolf said sexism is not misogyny and we need both words. But.

Julia Gillard used “misogyny’ perfectly accurately. She said that Tony Abbott described abortion as “the easy way out” and cited his political campaign against Gillard involving posters asking voters to “ditch the witch”. The latter, especially, is a time-honoured tradition of true misogyny – stirring up atavistic hatred of the feminine – that goes back to witch-hunts against powerful women in the New World. Her critics, for their part, are asking us to water down our awareness of real woman-hating and accept it as normal in political discourse.

“Misogyny” often surfaces in political struggles over women’s role, and you can tell because the control of women becomes personalised, intrusive and often sexualised. Misogyny has the amygdala involved – the part of the brain involved in processing emotional responses – there is contempt and violence in it. A public figure who tolerates the systemic under-prosecuting of rape is guilty of serious and unforgivable sexism; making rape jokes or explaining away the damage of rape in public as Congressman Todd Akin did recently in the US, or legislating, as over a dozen US states are now doing, transvaginal probes that are medically unnecessary, simply to sexually punish women for choosing abortion – well, that is misogyny.

Martin Pribble wrote a piece on the subject.

“Misogynist” is a term which is thrown about these days as a synonym for “sexist” or “social conservative” in many cases, and I must say, often I have found it to be used almost too freely when describing people, policy or situations…

The new “misogyny” is any act or attitude that doesn’t take into account women in their lives, in society and in cultures. The usage of the word has become so common in its new guise that it has taken on this meaning, while the linguistic pedants are waving their hands about claiming the destruction of the English language. If the new meaning has done anything, it has taken a once powerful and very succinct word and expanded the meaning to include any act against the well-being of women. It has lessened the power of the word, for what word do we now use for the real “hatred of women”, and not the ingrained sexist attitudes that pervade modern society?

I don’t think I’ve heard (or read) the word used that way. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard (and read) it used to name hatred, hostility, contempt toward women as a class. I certainly don’t think it should be used to mean “social conservative” – that would be very confusing. Maybe this is some special Australian thing that I’m not aware of.

No, just saying “I can use any words I want to” doesn’t deal with the problem. No, it really doesn’t. Not even if you say it really loudly, or over and over again, or really loudly over and over again.

Another day, another Internet radio show, another transcript, another attempt to make the problem just a matter of swearing.

…there is nothing that is placed outside of purpose, especially words, and what words I use depend on what message I am trying to convey. This is why I have such a problem with censorship. I would just as soon see Vincent Van Gogh censored as I would any artist, and the same goes for any wordsmith.

It’s one of the reasons I admired George Carlin so much. Do you remember his shtick back in the 1970’s, the one where he listed seven words that you would never, ever hear on television? Well, here we are, thirty years later, and you still won’t hear the words “shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker or tits” on NBC, CBS or ABC.

One, we need to define what kind of censorship we’re talking about. But more important, two, notice what words are not in Carlin’s list. Nigger, kike, faggot, spic, wop, yid, wetback, greaser, chink, slope, gook, Polack – you get the idea.

Except for “tits” the words were and are all swear-words. Three of them are also epithets. That seems to confuse people. Swearing is one thing and epithets are another. The problem I mentioned is not a problem about swearing, it’s a problem about epithets.

What saddens me is that there is a movement within the freethought community to censor words, just for the sake of their existence – giving no thought to context. There are words that have been deemed simply too offensive to even utter, and that, as a wordsmith, I have a huge problem with, because it reminds me of a certain religion that has a prophet that depicting an image of is too offensive to even draw.

No, that’s wrong. We utter them all the time. The problem is not uttering them, the problem is using them as epithets to revile and degrade certain women. The problem is using them as epithets to whip up hatred of certain women. The problem is using them in that context. It’s not true that we give no thought to context! It’s the opposite of the truth. A man furiously screaming that a particular woman is “a fucking bitch” is one context, and we do think about it.

Don’t even get me started on phrases like, ‘the n-word’ or whatever word people want to describe in similar fashion. If I mean to say something, I am going to use the word, not a rendition of the word. It reminds of the Christian who says, “Well, Sally is such a b.” For fuck’s sake, if you think Sally is a bitch, then just call Sally a bitch, and move on. We know what you mean, and using a letter in place of a word does NOT make you a better person.

And yet and yet and yet! Notice that he still doesn’t say – despite having set himself up to say exactly that – “For fuck’s sake, if you think Sally is a nigger, then just call Sally a nigger, and move on.” It’s still just bitch. Bitch is ok; bitch is fine; just say it, and move on. But what about “nigger”? Is that fine?

I haven’t seen him say it’s fine. I think the fact that he hasn’t said that indicates that he wouldn’t say that. Good. But then why does he say it when it’s about women as opposed to non-white people? And why, to be blunt, is he so obtuse about it?

I am a wordsmith. An architect. I will use whatever words I choose to build with, and it is your choice to drive by and bitch about how ugly the building is, or drive around town to find other things I’ve built. Either way, your choice. Just know, in any given room you’ll likely find an old record player, with a scratchy recording of a familiar voice, saying, “shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits,” and sometimes even “fart, turd or twat.”

But not, I take it, nigger, kike, faggot, spic, wop, yid, wetback, greaser, chink, slope, gook, Polack. Why is that, Al (for it is he)?

Slime Season is here, all festive with mildew and rot and weevils.

After four years of invective, four years during which the right has called President Obama a traitor, a communist, a fraud, an affirmative-action case, a terrorist-sympathizer and a tyrant, its shrillest voices have been reduced to the most primal insult of all. They are calling Obama’s mother a whore.

There’s this pseudo-documentary, Michelle Goldberg explains, that’s being mailed to voters.

The movie claims that Obama’s actual father was the poet and left-wing activist Frank Marshall Davis, who Dunham met through her father, who was a CIA agent merely posing as a furniture salesman. “My election was not a sudden political phenomenon,” says the narrator, speaking as if he were Obama reading his autobiography. “It was the culmination of an American socialist movement that my real father, Frank Marshall Davis, nurtured in Chicago and Hawaii, and has been quietly infiltrating the U.S. economy, universities, and media for decades.”

Davis enjoyed taking nude photos of women, and the images said to be of Dunham, to which the director pays lascivious attention, are presented as evidence of their intimate relationship. “These photos were taken a few weeks before 1960, when mom was about five weeks pregnant with me,” the narrator says. “Frank then sold the photos to men’s mail-order catalogues.”

Godalmighty Soraya Chemaly’s article on misogynist shit on Facebook is horrifying and scary.

Earlier this week I wrote about how the use of photography (especially without the subject’s consent) intensifies harassment, abuse and violence against women.  Quicker than I could type “Feministe” this Change.org petition appeared in my inbox:  “Please sign to remove 12 Year Old Slut Memes from Facebook.”  One of the offending page’s profile photos is of a pink-lipped and pouty child (she looks a lot younger than 12) wearing a tank top that reads “I love COCK.”  Now, anyone can create a page in Facebook (published at Facebook’s discretion) and this page doesn’t openly advocate violence against 12-year-old sluts.  It is, however, the virtual equivalent of street harassment and, as such, demonstrates the way the photography serves to exponentially magnify the effects of subtle and real violence along a broad spectrum.

But Facebook won’t remove it. It treats it as “Humor” and thus not to be taken down.

This is pretty much Facebook’s attitude and why it deals with this page and assorted others by adding [Humor] to titles.  As a result, according to Facebook’s interpretation and adherence to its own policies, they will not take down Boobs, Breasts and Boys who love them, unless the boys are babies since they do take down photos of breastfeeding mothers.  They will not take down  [Controversial Humor] rape pages, but they will remove a photograph of a woman crossing the street in New York City because she is topless (legal in New York, but not the sovereign state of Facebook).

They do take stuff down, but they won’t take down “Humor” about beating up women.

And, yes, I know, I know, the 12-year old slut meme page does not openly suggest, say,  hitting a pre-teen girl who makes the mistake of posting a photo that lends itself to Dom and James’ critical insights, nor does it make jokes about raping children or women.  Other Facebook pages, with fans ranging from the tens to the hundreds of thousand, however, do.  For example, “[Satire] Kicking a slut in the vagina and losing your foot inside” is still up and does not specify age of slut to kick…

Ah the ever-popular joke about kicking a woman in the cunt and getting your foot dirty! I’ve had those. The “joke” about kicking me in the cunt has offspring that include the “jokes” about the slimy boot. Those jokes are so funny – no wonder Facebook won’t take them down.

Why is it so hard to imagine a world in which girls and women are not daily subjected to the use of hate-filled violence against us as entertainment?  Endorsed more than tacitly by a major cultural force like Facebook?

It is arguable that misogyny is in Facebook’s DNA and integral to its culture. In defending his woman-denigrating representation of Mark Zuckerberg’s alcohol-fueled creation of Facemash, the precursor to Facebook, Aaron Sorkin wrote that “that was the very specific world I was writing about…Facebook was born during a night of incredibly misogyny… comparing women to farm animals, and then to each other, based on their looks and then publicly ranking them.” Even aside from the subjective nature of what people find funny and the erroneous use of the word “Satire” it is hard for me to ignore this origin story when considering Facebook’s gender selective interpretations of what constitutes “threatening,” “violent” and “hate speech,” in its content censorship choices.

Some of this is news to me. It creeps me out.

The stats have been showing a lot of hits via New Matilda for the past three days, and via a comment rather than the post. New Matilda must be big.

Anyway, the post is by Jane Caro, and it’s about the waves kicked up by her piece on “the wave of misogynistic remarks recently” (gosh, why does that sound so familiar?) and her tweet inviting suggestions for “new ways of ‘destroying the joint” being a woman & all.’

I had no idea whether I’d get any takers, but it took off like wildfire. Surgeon Jill Tomlinson added the hashtag #destroyingthejoint and a twitter phenomenon was created.

The tweets from both men and women were mostly hilarious, some borderline obscene — unleashed vaginas featured prominently (I was guilty of a couple of those myself) and some made powerful points. Jill Tomlinson tweeted about the way Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was #destroyingthejoint.

Twitter flashmob kind of thing. That can be fun – or, in the wrong hands, it can be just more wave of misogynistic remarks. That’s why I’m not as optimistic as Caro is.

…the hilarity and humour of #destroyingthejoint is precisely the point. In the past, we often — quite understandably — reacted to comments like the above with outrage, but outrage is defensive. It is the response of the powerless. Social media has given the powerless, many of whom are women, a voice and a platform.

As one commentator put it, #destroyingthejoint is reverse trolling. That’s why I think so many people, particularly women, have taken to the thread so wholeheartedly. Instead of feeling hurt and angry about the way women are routinely dismissed and put down by many of the powerful, they have felt gleeful, naughty — and yes, powerful.

They are not on the defensive this time, they are on the offensive. Maybe it is my advertising background but I have long argued that satire, humour and wit are much more powerful weapons than indignation. This weekend, twitter proved it.

That’s cool, but it works only as long as it works. The flashmob breaks up and goes back to work, the misogynist trollers stick around and keep at the trolling.

Still – Caro is great, and I’ll be delighted if she’s right and I’m wrong.

Bullying works. Systematic relentless daily bullying can break people and make them give up. Jen is sick of it, so they have succeeded in silencing her for the time being. She’s getting out.

I love writing, I love sharing my ideas, and I love listening to the ideas of my readers. But I simply no longer love blogging. Instead of feeling gleeful anticipation when writing up a post, I feel nothing but dread. There’s a group of people out there (google the ironic term FtBullies to find them) devoted to hating me, my friends, and even people I’m just vaguely associated with. I can no longer write anything without my words getting twisted, misrepresented, and quotemined. I wake up every morning to abusive comments, tweets, and emails about how I’m a slut, prude, ugly, fat, feminazi, retard, bitch, and cunt (just to name a few). If I block people who are twisting my words or sending verbal abuse, I receive an even larger wave of nonsensical hate about how I’m a slut, prude, feminazi, retard, bitch, cunt who hates freedom of speech (because the Constitution forces me to listen to people on Twitter). This morning I had to delete dozens of comments of people imitating my identity making graphic, lewd, degrading sexual comments about my personal life. In the past, multiple people have threatened to contact my employer with “evidence” that I’m a bad scientist (because I’m a feminist) to try to destroy my job. I’m constantly worried that the abuse will soon spread to my loved ones.

I just can’t take it anymore.

I don’t want to let them win, but I’m human. The stress is getting to me. I’ve dealt with chronic depression since elementary school, and receiving a daily flood of hatred triggers it. I’ve been miserable. And this toxic behavior is affecting all parts of my life. With this cloud of hate hanging over my head, I can’t focus or enjoy my hobbies or work. It has me constantly on edge with frayed nerves, which causes me to take it out on the ones I love. I spend most of my precious free time angry, on the verge of tears, or sobbing as I have to moderate comments or read what new terrible things people have said about me. And the only solution I see is to unplug.

That stinks.

Aron Ra said his piece in Amy’s series.

Remember that we’re not talking about religizombies either; we’re talking about plainly prejudiced people who consistently identify as, associate with, and participate in the freethinking community –both virtually and personally. Yes or no, are these the sort of people you want to have seen as representative of your position? Or typical of it? Or welcome in it? Because when you minimize the threat they impose, you are enabling them.

If you’re tired of hearing what’s-her-name complain about this all the time, why not solve the problem? Could it help to pretend that isn’t a problem? Or not enough of one to warrant your attention? Should you become part of the problem yourself? Do you think a bit of name-calling would be an appropriate response? If you not only permit it –by ignoring it- but actually contribute to it at all, then you’re aiding and defending those trolls –which is much worse than feeding them. If you’re well-known in this movement, you’ll be seen as a spokesman for despicable behavior. I have seen it happen.

Because when you minimize the threat they impose, you are enabling them. Yes you are.

There was a time when one could get away with telling really offensive jokes, or expressing deep-seated hatred against any other demographic, and it would be nervously tolerated. Why is it not that way anymore? Because the pockets of humanity who permit that are dwindling. That means progressive people are having a positive impact, and there is just no defensible alternate position on this matter.

So be a progressive people and have a positive impact. Dwindle the pockets of humanity who permit the expression of deep-seated hatred against women. Because why not?

Another great post in Amy’s series, this one from Phil Plait.

What the hell is going on in the online community?

If you’ve been reading or paying attention at all to any of the online cultures like skepticism or general geekery (scifi, gaming, convention-going, and so on), you’ll have seen astonishing and depressing displays of sexism. That’s been true for a long time. But recently some sort of sea change has occurred, and what we’re seeing now is a marked increase in outright misogyny and thuggery.

The examples are so distressingly ubiquitous I hardly need point them out. A woman gamer wants to make a documentary showing misogyny in video games, and she gets rape and death threats. Rebecca Watson calmly and rationally tells men not to hit on women in enclosed spaces and reaps a supernova of hate and irrational vitriol. And now we’re seeing death threats, rape threats, all kinds of violent threats, against women who are simply trying to improve the way they are treated at meetings as well as online.

This. Must. Stop.

I second that!

There was also Michael De Dora’s last week, which I never caught up with.

If you are among the people who have been the target of criticism for supposedly making sexist remarks or acting in a misogynistic manner, think about all of this. Have you rejected arguments simply because they are coming from a woman? Have you disrespected women? Was it simply because of their sex? Have you afforded women the same respect you feel you would afford all human beings? Have you tried to put yourself in any of these women’s shoes? Have you treated women as you would treat yourself? Have you let sexism and misogyny slide when you could have tried to stop it?

These questions represent a crossroads for the secular and skeptic movement, as many good people are questioning their involvement. I understand and sympathize many of their points of view, and direct this message to those who consider themselves on some other “side” of the argument: imagine the message it would send and the potential consequences both within and outside the movement if secularists and skeptics finally collectively stood together against sexism and misogyny, and for equality of the sexes and fair treatment. I dare say it could be historic.

Women have experienced and to continue to endure social oppression and harassment at the hands of men – even within the secular and skeptic communities. It’s time for us all to condemn this unacceptable behavior. It’s time to articulate as a community why the sexes, and indeed all people, should be treated fairly and equally. And it’s time for us to act in accordance with this thinking, to treat one others with kindness and empathy. Otherwise, not only will women continue to face poor treatment, but we might also see the end of the already fragile secular and skeptic movements.

Which is the idea behind Atheism+, as I understand it. It’s not to exclude and shun allies, it’s to inspire allies to declare themselves allies. Yes, granted it is to exclude and shun proud vocal misogynists, but how is that a bad thing?

The minute I read Amy’s suggestion that it would help a lot if leaders of the movment spoke out against the threats and hate-mongering against women – the minute I read it, I say, I thought of Dave Silverman. Mr Atheist Pants is Mr Visible. It would be great if Dave stepped up, I thought. But that’s all I did. I’m passive that way.

But Amy did ask, and Dave did step up.

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss.

As a Humanist, I see these threats as base and detestable. They have no redeeming value and will raise no awareness, solve no problems, and hurt those who should be friends. As a long term activist, I see hatred and threats of violence directed at our sisters-in-arms to be reprehensible, serving no purpose other than to hurt and intimidate valuable allies. As a white man, I know that so much of this hate comes from people who look like me — but they’re nothing like me where it counts. As the leader of a national atheist organization, I have implemented harassment policies to minimize such irrational, hateful, and counterproductive behavior wherever my authority allows. We have a war to win, and we won’t win until we can look forward, without watching our own backs. American Atheists stands by all its members, supporters, and allies, and we will not tolerate hate directed at any of us. Period.

~David Silverman

Suck on that, haters.

Amy says there will be more to come. Fasten your seatbelts, haters.

Did somebody say something about bullying?

Helen Lewis did, in a New Statesman blog post about the online harassment of Anita Sarkeesian. She displays a collection of the vicious stuff, much of it visual, so go there to see it.

The most amazing item is an interactive game inviting players to punch Sarkeesian in the face. When they comply, her face is turned to beaten pulp.

Lewis observes:

Sarkeesian is rare in sharing so much of the harassment that she has been subjected to — and it’s a brave choice for her to make. Every time I write about this subject, I get a few emails from women who’ve been through the same thing (and I’m sure there are men, too). They tell me much the same story: this happened to them, but they don’t want to talk publicly about it, because they don’t want to goad the bullies further.

Also (speaking for myself), because it’s not fun to talk about. It’s ugly and squalid and depressing and it puts you right off human beings. It also creeps you out personally if you’re the object of it. It would be nice if people who keep insisting that I’m a Feminazi Femistasi totalitarian member of the Sisterhood of the Oppressed who told big fat lies about getting two weird emails that could have been advice or mockery or threats – it would be nice if those people could keep that in mind. It would be nice if they could spare a few seconds from ranting about the mythical beast called FTBullies to remember that being a target of dribbling misogynist hatred like that creeps you out. (It would even be nice – but this is obviously far too much to expect – if they could spare a few seconds to formulate the thought that adding to an existing flood of dribbling misogynist hatred might be kind of a stupid move.)

If you were Anita Sarkeesian, how would you feel right now? She’s somebody with a big online presence through her website, YouTube channel and social media use. All of that has been targeted by people who – and I can’t say this enough – didn’t like her asking for money to make feminist videos.

I think Sarkeesian has been incredibly courageous in sharing what’s happened to her. Those obscene pictures are intended to shame her, to reduce her to her genitals, and to intimidate her.

And that’s creepy, you see. It’s not creepy because we (we Sisterhood of the Oppressed) love being victims. It’s creepy because it’s creepy. The claim that being creeped out by it is something that feminazis do because it’s so much fun to feel like a victim is incredibly insulting. I fucking hate feeling like a victim. I loathe it. It’s not how I see myself at all.

But it isn’t my fault. It isn’t my doing. Here’s a newsflash: anybody can be turned into a victim. We’re all vulnerable in that way, because we’re not made of steel. In the first world most of us are lucky enough to be able to ignore that fact most of the time – but as a fundamental fact it’s still true. (Consider Chris Clarke, who had his Jeep stolen twice in two weeks; the second time, three days ago, it was totaled.)

It happened to Sarkeesian for no real reason. A lesser version has been happening to Rebecca Watson for no real reason. A much lesser version has been happening to me for no real reason. It can happen to anyone. This is indeed intimidating, as it’s meant to be.

A guy who talked shit to Tory MP Louise Mensch and threatened her children via email was given a suspended 26-week sentence earlier this month.

Zimmerman targeted Mensch after last summer’s riots when the Corby MP suggested that sites such as Twitter ought to be closed down if the police thought it necessary. Mensch was also in the public eye as a member of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, which questioned Rupert and James Murdoch over phone hacking.

Oh well in that case – obviously she deserved anything he chose to deal out.

Addressing her as the “slut of Twitter”, Zimmerman said: “We are Anonymous and we do not like rude cunts like you and your nouveau riche husband Peter Mensch. We are inside your computer, all your phones everywhere and inside your homes.

“So get off Twitter. We see you are still on Twitter. We have sent a camera crew to photograph you and your kids and we will post it over the net including Twitter, cuntface. You now have Sophie’s Choice: which kid is to go. One will. Count on it cunt. Have a nice day.”

Well if she doesn’t like that kind of thing she should just stay home and shut up.