Monthly Archives: April 2007

In the wake of the misogynistic death threats against  blogger Kathy Sierra, and the huge debates which have ensued, Salon editor Joan Walsh has weighed in with a particularly insightful piece called quite simply ‘Men who hate women on the Web’.  One of the reasons Walsh’s piece is particularly credible is that she, too, has been on the receiving end of misogynistic comments, but has – until reading Sierra’s post – basically tried to brush them off as one of the grubby downsides of culture per se, but also a culture which is amplified by the shield of (supposed) anonymity online.  In her article Walsh makes that point explicit:

Attitudes toward women have improved dramatically just in my lifetime, but still the world has too many misogynists, and the Web has given them a microphone that lets them turn up the volume on their quavering selves, their self-righteous fury, their self-loathing expressed as hatred of women. […] I truly believe misogynist trolls are only a tiny sliver of the Web population. But I can no longer say they don’t matter, or they do no real harm. We have them here at Salon in politics and relationship threads; Sierra has them in the world of tech marketing. They’re probably not the same guys. That’s disturbing. What’s unique to the Web is that they can easily collaborate: A vicious prankster who’d like to rattle Sierra can make threats or even find and publish her address, and he might only want to scare her, not do her real physical harm. But he can be joined by an unhinged person who takes the address and acts on it.

While the specificities of who did what appear muddled at best in terms of the threats against Kathy Sierra, her post has re-raised and re-emphasised the issues of abuse, sexism and misogyny is very real ways.  Stop Cyberbullying Day was certainly one important response, but so too are the many, many conversations which have highlighted the many instances of verbal/textual abuse (albeit is less explicit terms that those against Kathy Sierra) that occur in the blogosphere and online (and, indeed, offline) culture.  I concur with Walsh that it’s important to emphasise that there are less misogynistic attitudes is the world today, but that doesn’t mean being complacent is the answer.  As we revel in the era of social software, the last week has given us pause and highlighted the need to continue to discuss the problems of sexism, misogyny and any other hate-speech, and never to presume the battle against these problems is won, otherwise web2.0 will end up with the equality0.0.