Is the Internet unsafe for women? | FACTUAL FEMINIST
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- čas přidán 21. 09. 2014
- Is there an epidemic of online harassment of women? Recent articles in major publications have gone as far as calling online harassment targeting women, "the civil rights issue of our time." Caroline Kitchens takes a closer look at the evidence behind the alarming assertions, and her findings might surprise you.
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Partial transcript:
Hi, I’m Caroline Kitchens, filling in for Christina Hoff Sommers. Christina will return for next week’s episode. Anyone who’s spent time on the internet can tell you it’s often not the best place for intelligent debate. There are a lot of trolls, and they seem to target --well, just about everyone. But recently, feminists and journalists have seized on some disturbing incidents and factoids to claim that there is a larger, patriarchal effort to silence women online. Amanda Hess says that the cyber harassment of women is the civil rights issue of our time. The conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat called Hess’ story, “a candidate for the most troubling magazine essay of 2014.” With the exception of a few skeptics, no one has checked the facts. There’s no question that women sometimes suffer severe harassment and abuse online. But when you look at the evidence, there is no indication that online harassment is either a) systematic or b) limited to women. Amanda Hess and other activist bloggers cite data from an anti-abuse advocacy group claiming that 72.5% of people who reported online harassment incidents were women. But, as libertarian writer/feminist Cathy Young showed in Reason magazine, that data was rigged from the start. First: it looked at REPORTED cases of harassment. But what if women are simply more likely to classify an incident as harassment and to report it than men might be? Second, and more importantly: there were only an average of 288 victims identified per year. That’s too many, but when you consider the hundreds of millions of women who use the internet, it hardly amounts to an “epidemic.” So let's look at a more serious study. According to a Pew survey, 13% of women said they had been stalked or harassed online, but so did 11% of men. In the same study, 5% of women said something happened online that led them into physical danger, and so did 3% of men. These gaps are small and within the poll’s margin of error.
Are women being silenced online?
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"Check your facts, not your privilege" is a great quote.
I say check both
If you say stupid shit online you are going to get hate regardless of what gender you are.
↑ this, also even if you don't say "stupid shit" anyone who disagrees with you that doesn't have the proper level of maturity might just outright attack you.
Them comparing online harassment to civil rights issues is as ridiculous as that lady who said she got PTSD from twitter, and that it was just as bad or worse than PTSD that people in the military get.
No, Amanda Hess, you are not Rosa Parks. You are an online, whiny, social justice warrior who writes blogs and occasionally news articles. You get a below average amount of hate. Any public figure expects hate. Only a professional victim would chock it up to sexism. I receive more hate than you get on a daily basis, and I barely have 25k subscribers. Do I call it sexism, or racism? No, I call it hate. Hate like any public figure would get.
I think you mean Melody Hensley, though there may be more people like her.
Saiko Manko I don't know, I heard about it through a quick video but I honestly don't waste my time learning their names - their names do not deserve to be household names. They haven't earned their fame - they are infamous. Almost like Hitler. Hitler was a terrible person and yet his name is a household name... I don't want that to happen with any other horrible people, if I can try to prevent it.
Benjamin Wiseman Well there ya go. I think women are just as capable as men - but there is definitely physical and mental differences between men and women. Listen guy, I'm gonna say this to you not as an internet warrior but as a human being:
Don't let feminists and social justice warriors make you sexist. Your first inclination is to hate them for attacking you and calling you a rapist or rape supporter or sexist or whatever else - but most women are not like this. When you get into college and high school or the real world (I have no clue how old you are) you will find that women are no different than men and just want to have a good time and be happy.
The internet is this special place where it's extremely easy for social justice warriors to spew hatred and ridiculous shit because in the real world they would quickly be silenced by loud "BOO"s because they are spoiling everyone's mood and just being ridiculous overall.
But on the internet they are catered to and all get together and try and take over.
Just learn to know the difference between a social justice warrior and regular people.
I'd say that men are smarter when using the internet, simply because we explore it more, where woman mostly use it simply for social sites like facebook or twitter.
FailsAndFights I completely agree feminism is a sexist and bigoted movement and I spent a lot of time listening and seeing how crazy they are that I actually started to become sexist and think all women were like this. It was a very bad thing for my friend's and family and I realized that if I kept letting feminism make me sexist not only are they winning but I am destroying my own life.
(F)Actual Feminists
Feminists: We need to pass legislative measures to curb online harassment!
Everyone else: what's wrong with the block button?
+Michael Miller Although I agree with the idea, one tactic that harassers use is to slander you in a tweet, thus unleashing a storm of harassers on you. You can't block 20 people per minute. That's just tiresome and still make you feel like shit. So my defense now is to not respond to people who are clearly seeking a confrontation rather than a dialogue. And if people seem ok and become toxic later on, I block them to avoid further escalation. Basically, the trick is to learn to see the early signs and bail out. Same applies offline.
I saw the word "feel" in there one too many times
Hah good point. I personally always felt bad for people like Justin Bieber or Rebecca Black for their constant onslaught of harassers. They unfortunately can't block everyone.
The block button is a bandaid; fine for now but not a long-term solution.
No legal action against people who send death or rape threats?
"We are not fragile victims, who need to be protected from online trolls and offensive speech" WOOT! :D
Ya
If the internet is your "safe place". Please re-think your life choices.
Only safe if you're anonymous, use Tor, and hide behind 7 proxies.
ItsMehWeesnaw
Unless if the first proxy is a honeypot.
lol I hear that "safe place" shit on tumblr all the time
The deputy factual feminist is also awesome! Thanks Caroline.
Lol
It's great to see that Christina Hoff Sommers has another bright individual to pass the baton onto for the important series. I'd love to see more from both of you, cheers.
I have mostly been harassed by feminists. When you said "viscously police each other's righteousness", it hit very close to home.
How the hell does this video only have 23'000 views? :( Anita Sarkeesians bullshit has 1 million views, come on people, we all need to spread this video more.
+Angry Foreigner Saw this video from your Q&A :)
+Angry Foreigner wow, trode inte du skulle se den kommentaren, och du gillade den också.
Då kanske du ser denna också, så, jag ville bara säga att jag gillar verkligen dinna videos och tycker du gör ett jätte bra job
Keep it up!
"Check your facts, not your privilege" love it. Thanks for the video.
Share this and support Caroline people. Shes already received hate articles from jezebel and the like.
The interesting thing is, that you would have thought a video like this would have a high proportion of MRAs and anti-feminists, so I decided to read through some of the comments on this video, most comments are about the videos content, some are predictably very anti sjw, some are compliments, yet I cannot find a single comment thus far that is sexualised, objectifying or sexist towards the author of this video. Thoughts Jezebel? xD
For this particular video? How is disagreeing and using data they'd collected something to receive hate for?
*****
It's not that they didn't watch the video or even they don't understand, it's simply that they don't care about the truth it has nothing to do with feminism they can't see it unless you agree men bad women good
She is a truly brave individual fighting for equality. I wish more people could hear her so maybe ~100% of women would consider themselves feminist and not the 25 % today.
Kafka Dev
If 75% of women don't consider them selves feminist, would that not suggest that feminism has a lot to do to clean up the way others view it. Because all it seems to be is man hating self important radicals who want everything given to women with out those women doing anything but be born with a virgina
*Everyone* gets harassed on the internet. *Everyone*. Without fail. Every single day I get what would be called abuse and harassment on a massive scale if it were happened anywhere but on the internet.
I do not approve of, condone or engage in on-line trolling, insults or threats. Having said that my suggestion would be similar to that given by President Truman- "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen." In fact you should feel some compassion for those demented, brain damaged folks who populate the "trollosphere". Post a smiley, have a good laugh at them and hit the delete button, repeat as necessary.
HAH, GET IT? "GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN."
BECAUSE SHE'S CAROLINE KITCHENS?
Whatever, that was funny.
Trey Cain Also, she's a woman and so it's all ironic to tell her to get OUT of the kitchen... :P
trolling is fun and a revealing pastime
ExilePhantom An equity feminist, to my mind, often still clings to some (IMO) illusions that some of the earlier waves of feminism were righteous.
They will often, for example, credit the suffragettes for their victories on behalf of all women, without examining the overall context of the culture at the time (that many women were against women's suffrage for some fairly solid reasons, for instance), without realizing that many of the suffragettes were essentially terrorists who engaged in acts of violence and arson, or that many of them only supported suffrage for wealthy, white women, and not for all women, or even all men. I recall one suffragette (forget whether it was in an article or a speech) who basically said that women were more intelligent, responsible, educated and civic-minded than "negroes", therefore women deserved the vote more than blacks.
I made the comment to someone in another thread who said I should be trying to "take back" feminism, take it back from what? From everything I've been able to discover, it was never an equality movement--it's been poisoned from the start, and has continued in the same vein since. Pretty much every "victory" of feminism through all its waves, once I poked a little deeper than what's in history books (which are written by the victors, mind you), has had a fundamental injustice underneath it. And from the Declaration of Sentiments onward, its most active political arm has cast men as history's villains. If the entire thing is poison, what are you left with once you extract the poison?
I mean, even look at this seemingly unobjectionable slogan:
Feminism is the radical notion that women are human.
What does that "feel-good" slogan say about men?
Feminism is the radical, false and hateful notion that men have never considered women human.
And then look at this bit from Emma Watson's speech to the UN:
"I want men to take up this mantle so that their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too, reclaim parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so, be a more true and complete version of themselves..."
I'm sorry, but men ARE human. They are human just because, not just when they behave more like women. Vulnerability is not the only qualification for being human, and men have very good reasons (both evolutionarily and socially) to avoid being seen as vulnerable.
Watson said in her speech that her male friends at 18 could not express their feelings. I see men expressing their feelings all the time--they just tend to do it differently, for reasons both social and biological. Yet if these young men don't express the same feelings as Watson in the same way women do, they're repressed? Or defective? Not complete, or not true in themselves?
It astounds me that these things can be said, and no one can bat an eyelash.
That feminist slogan: Feminism is the radical notion that women are human. It didn't put any conditions on women's humanity. It was a simple statement about women: women are human. It didn't say, "women should be liberated so they can become human". It said "women are human, therefore they should be liberated."
Watson's very "feel-good" speech says, "men should be liberated so they can become human."
But she's pretty and young and a woman, so we will impute upon her the best intentions and the most charitable interpretation of her very blatant assertion that, as they are now, men are not human. That she can make that assertion in the context of a call to action for men to serve the interests of equality for women, is just...
All I can say is that if self-described equity feminists see something to be salvaged from a movement with a consistent history of solipsism, bigotry and animosity toward, and exploitation of, males, I say go for it.
But once you've extracted all that poison, don't be surprised if there's nothing left to salvage.
karen straughan
I've been against new wave feminism for some time now and i never really thought about what they were before now. I've never studied who they were, i've only thought about what we all consider as common knowledge, like women's vote, abortion, etc, and i was thinking than before this new era in feminism, it was A-ok.
But, in your comment when you say than there was some very solid point against women's right to vote, what were they?
I don't mean any challenge right there, it's just than i never actually studied the period than you are referencing, and just want to educate myself. If you are talking about it in one of your video, or if you know a site/book that talk or explain what were these reason, can you please link it?
"Check your facts, not your privilege" is a great quote. I like this
I have a threat for both of you women on Factual Feminist.
*puts on his Liam Neeson voice*
I will find you. And I will hug you.
Thank you for these videos so very much. It feels like a breathe of fresh are to hear you two talk. Please keep up the good work.
You're really going to make me angry if I have to adopt the feminist label! I've been making the same exact points as you to those toxic feminist on tumblr forever, and that word "feminist" has become a curse word to me.
Speaking of online harassment though. I'm 32 years old. I've had various channels on the internet since I was 11. The most persistent troll I ever had, followed me for 6 years, sending me messages hours every, single day. The amount of threats I received were insane. I can't ever recall once even batting an eye to it, or caring. I'm sure there must have been a time when i was a young teen or something where it might have made me angry.
If a troll "followed" you for 6 years, he/she must have been one of the biggest losers on the internet. I mean, really?
thegreatmaster65 An interesting note to add on that. One of these things that blew my mind the most. They disappeared for a few years. This is a person I never responded a single word too. I don't feed the trolls:P When they came back, they were in a channel of mine. I go "Woah??? I see you're having normal conversations with people... What was the 6 years of trolling and threats about??"
Their reply "Shitz and gigglz". The end.
SwuaveWEB men get it also
I've even been accused of owning a fedora!
Comment of the year!
NO! THE HORROR!
I don't even have a nice suit, why would I have a fedora?
Which is a symbol of proud women. Ironically.
Rebecca George
Actually it's a symbol of an obsolete male identity from the more sexist 50s. Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, Indiana Jones etc. wore fedoras.
Yes but woman would wear it as a symbol of pride. In the 40s or was it 50s.
BTW, Frank ain't obsolete. Old yes, obsolete no.
This the rule of thumb on the internet: The more sensitive you are, the more reliably you will attractive trolls. Hence the saying "Don't feed the troll."
Feminists are a 5-course meal to trolls.
Only a 5 course meal? Feminism sets up a troll for life.
All you can eat buffet.
where is based mom? :'(
This is based Nee-Chan
AnimusAeternus haha :)
based mom has been busy lately.
where did this term come from btw?
AlessandroTheCynical indeed she has. I just heard her on Milo's podcast. She was spot on as usual
You know what I like about the Factual Feminist series? It's not that they provide counter arguments for extremist Feminazis like Sarkeesian (since lots of other people already do this) but that it provides a different female perspective that marks the difference between being a feminist and being delusional' so that other people can tell the difference and call extremists out (and that a mix up of the two can stop). My thumbs up as always.
It's true. Ideologues of any persuasion should fight the delusional people trying to co-opt their ideology. Feminists, MRAs, liberals, conservatives, take your pick. Any political ideology out there has its delusional people. Personally, I refrain from attaching myself to any political ideology for this very reason. I'd much rather call all of them out from a position of relative neutrality.
Pär Sekut Pretty much. People carrying a name to represent what they stand for doesn't bother me in the least unless they are tricking people into a mindset to push their shitty agenda for selfish interests.
Awareness has been raised to me that the one and only way to combat this is to attack ignorance itself rather than calling out the fallacies on the cons'/deluded people's arguments. However, this is harder than it sounds when you actually try to apply it lol
I feel like they arent fighting for just women
JC Not this episode is BS though
The thing that I find really upsetting is that I can plainly see a negative bias towards men, a lot of the time.
Anecdotal example: my partner and I used to frequent the same forum. One day, he contradicts a woman on something trivial about copyright. Later on, this woman starts harassing him via private message and seems to have a beef with him every time he posts. He'd have brushed off the posts, were it not for the fact that I pointed out it was the same person - yes, he didn't even remember.
So he asked her if she was always coming to threads where he posted something to start arguments with him because of this and she replied that she was happy that he'd remembered - which as I said, he didn't, I did - because it meant that that argument stuck to his mind and she was afraid he'd forgot.
So, he does his best to ignore her, but doesn't want to simply stay silent when she gives unsound advice on copyright just to avoid her wrath. She then starts to PM him and has long arguments in which she says that she has it as a goal to drive him off that community because he's some sort of monster and sprinkles them with sexual remarks - the only one I remember is something like "Oh, yeah, you're so intelligent, I'm touching myself!" which she actually posted in public, and didn't get any reaction from anyone.
So, he's had it. He was stressed at work and tired of having to be messaged by this person and asks the moderators of the forum for help in more than one occasion as she keeps the continuous harassment for weeks. All they did was giving her a warning in one instance when she openly threatened him rather than just insult him. When my partner inquired with the moderation team as to why they hadn't done more to stop her (like banning her), they said exactly "I thought you could deal with it."
It's something that comes to my mind because this woman made a conscious effort to paint herself as a feminist and would have certainly screamed "internet rapist" for half the stuff she did, provoked only by someone disagreeing with her.
For the longest time, people like her and others that I crossed paths with who behaved with the same hypocrisy were the ones that gave me the opinion I had of feminists. I don't know if Caroline identifies as feminist, but I'm certainly really grateful to Christina Hoff Sommers for making me change my mind and giving me a bit more faith in people. Thanks to both for baking their arguments with data!
"Hahahahahahahaha How The Fuck Is Cyber Bullying Real Hahahaha Nigga Just
Walk Away From The Screen Like Nigga Close Your Eyes Haha" - Tyler the creator
Yes, I have been discriminated because of my gender. Quite often actually.
I know that it's really not much, but last year, I got into a bit of a fight with a friend of mine. Now we weren't exactly bff's, but I did and still consider her as my friend. Well, I'm Gymnophobic and she is (or at least was at the time) very much wrapped up in "The Fight for Breastfeeding". I confronted her a couple times to play devil's advocate to make sure her heart was in the right place and that she didn't go over the deep end about it.
And Strangers, a dozen of them, came to her aid. One woman was actually quite sexist in her remarks stating that "You'll never understand breastfeeding because you're a male. Stop harassing her."
And I agreed she's right, "True, I'll never understand the feeling of being close to your child like that, however, To say that I won't understand the facts and psychological aspects of it because of my gender is quite sexist to say. And just because you're a woman does not automatically make you an expert on the facts of breastfeeding either. etc." (I also emphasized that she is my friend and that I do play Devils Advocate for her, but I'm pretty sure this woman didn't read anything that I actually typed.)
She then responded by stating, "you need to stop Mansplaining and stop telling her how to raise her child."
Now, having never heard this term before, I responded with… "The term you are looking for is "Nagging". Don't bring made up words explicitly made to be sexist into this discussion about real facts. Now I'm not telling her how to raise her child, I have no authority to do so and Neither do You for that matter. Because again, Just because you have had a child before Does Not make you an expert in the subject."
Because I could hold my own ground and not take any real offense to the blatant sexism the discussion could continue until an actual expert came forward, so I could learn real facts instead of what people "thought" or "felt" is the best idea. Any real concerns I had were put to rest after that.
A lot of online harassment towards women comes from other women.
thank you, based sister.
I've only recently found this channel and only watched a few videos so far, but I've pretty much enjoyed all of them. Even on one of them were I didn't fully agree I still enjoyed it. Why? Because it's so refreshing and calming to know that there are women like this who are trying to go about things in the right way. Now obviously I know there are a huge portion of women like this. But the problem is they are never the ones on TV or in Newspapers etc. I was getting really frustrated for a while since permanent levels of mindless bullshit was just cropping up everywhere, spewing out falsehoods and man-hate. And the fact that the bullshit is changing 'some' everyday women into idiots is frankly pretty frightening. But these videos have really made me feel much better about humanity for once (and removing my worries for the future). Maybe there is hope after all... Genuinely, thank you very much.
i have been waiting for this to be addressed by a woman backed up with hard facts. Some women really do go way too far when confronting men with even the most trivial issues at time. Most of the comments are almost always gender or sex based and then if the men defend themselves the women play victim and all of a sudden gender roles matter again.
Now I see why so called "feminists" dislike these videos so much. They have facts and sources.
"Check your facts, not your privilege."
Subscribed.
Simple criticism or disagreeing with women is considered "harassment". These are idiots who claim calling a woman beautiful on the street is cat calling.
I'm a gamer, and believe me I've gotten about 3 death threats by now while playing games online. And not to mention CZcams or Facebook posts where people are harsh on you or your opinions. I am a victim of online harassment.
Scratch that. I am a guy who understands how the internet works. By placing my voice there, I am opening myself to criticism and the occasional death threat or ad hominem by irrational people not in the mood for an argument exchange. And I know that if I just play a victim or suppress myself, I won't be able to stand up for my opinions. So it's necessary to fight back.
Face it, the internet is not going to change for you. What you can do is understand the internet and learn more about it and the people there.
Great to see CL Kitchens, thanks.
Hey, why don't you knock it the hell off. You trying to be logical and use a well thought out argument or something? What has the patriarchy done to you?!................
The concepts of logic and objectivity are, after all, tools of the patriarchy, meant to impose oppressive male norms upon womyn.
What's sad is that I've literally seen people on Tumblr equate logic with patriarchy and oppression.
Savnoc What's sadder is that I've seen it in academic writing.
wut
@@WiggaMachiavelli Only because of 'quotas' promoting idiots into professorships.
Thank you Carolyn for a thought-provoking and informative video, it was a pleasure to watch.
My 103 year old Grandmother went on the internet, and within a year she was dead!
Co-incidence?
Thanks for the video Caroline! Amazing video as always.
Caroline, please link to your sources in future. Surely that can be on the Factual Feminists to do list. Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Hello, I would like to thank you for creating videos that are rational, informative and one of the few, very few channels that I take seriously on feminism. Though I consider myself as a MRA identifier this is the only place I have been exposed to what real problems facing wemon are and that are not inflated, hyper dramatised, or based on more than sceptical science.
My mother always said that if you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen
pretty sure the internet is unsafe for everyone. like EVERYONE! especially anyone with an opinion.
wtf's a cock gun.
indonesianbob67 He's making a joke saying you're opinion is wrong and "cocks gun" means he brings out a gun to you head.
bizargrumpsss ohhh i though he meant a gun made from a chicken
Makes sense her name is Kitchens :D.....
sorry, I couldnt help myself given the topic. I play skill-based competitive videogames and have had an online presence for a very long time. In most of the game's I've played, I've seen lots of sexist, racist, and stereotypical generalizations and insults. However, sometimes I've even noticed people bashing things they are in favor of, or using stereotypes that belong to a group they themselves are in as an insult towards someone else just in attempts to raise a reaction. Like with my opening statement; I'm almost certain that if people bother to reply I might get a few comments from those who read that, read that I played videogames, and are then going to release their capslock fury upon me without reading the rest of this. And that, will be fun. I rather enjoyed the topic and points brought up in this video and Caroline did a very good job in my opinion. I wound classify myself as a feminist (excluding tumblrism).
I've seen lots of harassment towards both men and women. Feminist Frequency released a video titled "25 invisible benefits of gaming while male", and I can attest to many if not all of the situations they bring up, do happen, and shockingly often. (oh god i had to look it up to remember the name and now I've got the hiccups from laughing too hard). The internet in it's current form is simply a hostile place if you don't know how to deal with and navigate it.
Thanks, Caroline.
For voicing reason and facts.
Loving this series
I like this Caroline girl. She has Kitchen in her last name.
Thank you, Caroline! (I swear if she pops up more often there is going to be so much GLaDOS-themed art of her.)
Caroline, can I just say it's so refreshing to hear some common sense and reason coming from a young lady in my generation. (Unfortunately, the loud minority is what you hear most). Good on you for speaking out.
I think quite a bit of the fear could be due to the differences between female and male interactions with other people. In real life women, paradoxically, walk around in a sphere of protection from those around, never fearing real repercussions to what they do. No one is going to attack them and people will feel sorry for them if they get upset. As a society we learn to protect women, to tolerate any amount of their bullshit and to try extra hard not to hurt their feelings.
Online that facade drops and suddenly their actions have repercussions. People don't care if you cry online and they don't feel the same protective urges towards women. Without the internet a lot of women will go through life never having been told to fuck off. No matter what they do. It's not quite the same for a lot of men who have been in less supportive and protective social environments before.
I cannot express how much i love these videos..
Thank you - great video.
Your positive mindset is a refreshing change from the victimhood mindset of other blogs. You give me hope for the future of my daughters. Hopefully they will be driven to achieve respect, not demand it.
Thankyou for another argument based on statistics, covering both male and female perspectives. I'm happy and proud to stand beside feminists like you, Sommers and Watson who recently spoke at the UN with a balanced campaign to challenge both gender roles which are harmful to both males and females.
Acknowledging the existence of trolls as a large root of the problems online that affect everyone is very important. A system to minimise the power of these small groups would be very important imo.
My dad saying I was weird for liking boy toys as a kid is far more sexist than anything I have ever been called on the internet. Trolls aren't actually sexist, they're just trolls and should be ignored!
God I wish Pen & Teller did a Bullshit episode on this insane form of feminism.
What do you want me to do? Say sorry? Its the internet, no one controls it. Everyone gets harassed get death threats. Its common thats the truth, it sad to know that that happens to people but nobody can do anything.
Excellent work. Keep it up!
Based mom is missing. T_T
Deputy mom is still pretty good though. Especially with that last line about checking facts and not privilege. It's nice to see someone destroying biased studies.
I love the comments on this video. So glad everyone is agreeing. WOOT.
I'd like to see a study that went something like this:
Take a large sample of random twitter/comment responses. Remove all gender/identifying information. Have people of both genders judge whether the statements are threatening/harassing. You'd then be able to tell from the results if there was a difference in how much harassment women received vs men. You'd also know for sure whether there was a difference in where men and women generally place the bar as to what constitutes harassment.
If anything offends you, that's YOUR problem!
Perhaps an easy and interesting subject here to study: create a format where women actually get treated like males, and see how they respond (and vice versa).
I think we all know how men instantly become nicer the moment a woman enters the room. It seems to me that on the internet that does also happen, but not as much (and of course, often we don't know someone's gender). That might explain in part why some women feel so abused: because they're not getting the nice treatment they're completely used to.
An exception to this is trolling. Most of the older inet generation are quite used to ignoring them; presumably women are less used to that, and so they're among the more likely victims. Women also seem to have a greater tendency to cry for help, while men rely on themselves... which in this context means, such women readily feed the trolls.
Just my thoughts.
sorsocksfake The amount of times guys have excused themselves for belching in my presence when I know full well they wouldn't do that in front of a bunch of lads.
Thanks. Keep up the good work.
These videos are so nice. Using facts to support an argument, who'd have thought.
I am getting, maybe not solely sexist but agresive comments daily and in truckloads because I am so vocal in online. However, never has a post actually been anything more than a pitiful attempt to intimidate and silence me. To me, these comments are simply dismissed. They are not legid threats, you can spot it from the way it is written. Being familiar with the internet culture also helps you to deal with it. And she is correct, internet is a net neutral place. If you say something stupid, you will be met with an appropriate reaction. I see just as much flaming done to my guy friends than to my girl friends. In gaming or in the internet to begin with.
Here is a fun social experiment. Have two friends write a post. One male, one female. Make them write a flammatory, extremely stupid response but do not mention genders.Compare the results. Did the perception change? Now go do the same thing but this time in a place where expressing gender is relevant and make the repeat making another stupid comment. Did the perception change? Compare the results A and B. What is the conclusion?
I have a question that I would love to be answered by Christina.
What advice would you offer to someone who is a member of an online discussion group or forum that suffers from an increasing number of militant feminists - the kind who eschew logic, reason and evidence in favour of personal attacks and accusations of misogyny as a response to any criticism or opposing view?
Should we ignore such men and women or is it more important to stand up for the identity of your online community against this kind of subversion?
Men that bash women also bash other men. It's not about sexism.
Is Monica Hess related to Rudolf Hess? Could explain some things.
One criticism that I have of these videos (The ones I have watched anyways, which is admittedly not all) is that when sources - whether for or against the argument presented - are brought up they are not provided as links for the means of citation, when possible.
While I believe and agree with the points addressed, they cannot fully be placed in reality without providing this evidence in an easily digestible form.
The arguments covered would gain a significant amount of further credibility behind them when they are proven to be backed up with solid evidence.
This makes so much sense.
My two incidents of harassment and stalking that stand out to me were both done by women. I've had plenty of guys insult me but they're usually never drawn out events that include making new accounts when I blocked them and making posts about me on other websites like the a fore mentioned women did.
I had one person google my name and go to my facebook page and try to use that info to scare me. I knew that's what they had done because my 'location' was actually incorrect because I had moved. I don't know if that was a man or a woman because it was anonymous.
Caroline Kitchens...speaking truth. You go girl!!! :-)
I stopped caring about female crocodile tears long ago.
More people should watch this channel.
I don't think the Internet is an unsafe place for women.
Light Yagami it’s unsafe for everyone this episode is BULLSHIT.
'is the internet an unsafe place for women?'
yes, but then again, the internet is an unsafe place for anyone with an opinion. doesnt matter who you are or what you are. if you have an opinion that people disagree with you're gonna have a bad time.
I doubt that many trolls are actually sexist or misogynist. i.e. Just because someone says something that may indicate such, does not mean they believe it. This is especially applicable to trolls as their job is essentially to get a rise out of someone. And "hitting a (common) nerve" is a good way to do that.
One big question would be....How do you seperate actual harassment from a regular run of the mill troll who says what ever he/she thinks at the particular moment and forgets it 2 minutes later?
People say all sort of extreme and nasty shit in the internet where nobody knows eachother. That is the whole reason of trolling. You can express your emotions (however good or bad they are) instantaniously without anyone knowing who you actually are. Face to face conversations happen to be very different. Usually people hide what they think behind a fake smile to not give a bad impression of themselves. You dont need that in online anonymous environment. Wheater it is good or bad thing to have is another discussion entirely. So far it has shown us what base human nature is and it has been like that from dawn of humankind. It was just way more bloody before.
I think these idiot critics should be extremely happy that we have place were to blow off steam and not kill and murder eachother day in and day out like we used to do if you look back in history.
I like your video Christina Hoff Sommers. I hope you will be back next episode and Caroline Kitchens does a great job too.
I've been insulted MORE online under anonymity and neutral aliases than with a feminine name
The ONLY time I've ever seen an organized campaign of harassment to individuals has been by the so called feminists against people who disagree with them and they escalate it well beyond what it started as (A prime example can be seen last week with the multiple hit pieces against Sommers).
In the case of Anita Sarkesian an Feminist Frequency i saw that anyone who was critical of them was labeled a misogynist. I even saw female game developers who questioned Anita be labeled as harrassers and misogynists. It's a big fat joke.
Thank god that there is a feminist channel that stand up for men
The only times I've ever been harrassed in a sexist manner was when I disagreed with feminism, and some of the asks I got were from male feminists (ironic, to call a woman a cunt when decrying it as a "slur"). Most, however, were from women. Some encouraged me to commit suicide. Others said they hoped I'd get abused or raped so I knew just how much I still needed feminism. They would insult me for being disabled, and for being bisexual. As soon as I disagreed with them, they dropped all their "intersecionality" and even their so called deeply held beliefs about women to try and "put me in my place" as it were. Someone to point at when they were called out on being homophobic or being ableist (god how tumblr has made this word a farce, though) and say "We can't be! See?" and then continue on their merry way.
Is it weird that properly analyzed statistics effectively applied to refute an errant assertion makes me salivate a little?
(also strings of precise words?)
I think you should do more factual feminist!!!!!
I miss Mrs. Sommers, but I'm glad to know she's not the only woman who feels this way. You have made a decent video and I hope you make more soon.
BOOM! Perhaps now they'll cry that they're not being trolled _enough_? ...
Great video.
John Oliver should watch this.
Feminist's most adored hashtag #killallmen.
But the war is on women?
Not even Houdini could pull of that sleight of hand misdirection and get away with it.
This is an interesting video, but there are some issues with the figure of 288 cases per year. The source for this figure is Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), whose website cites "an estimated 50-75 cases per week". The 288 per year is the amount of people (male or female) filling out their questionnaire, not the total amount of people reporting harassment. If we assume the questionnaire is representative, at a sample size of 288 and 72.5% of them being women, that puts the true figure between roughly 1750 women per year (lower bound of 95% confidence interval, 50 cases per week) and 3028 (upper bound of 95% confidence interval, 75 cases per week). The corresponding number for men is between between roughly 580 and 1273.
This of course does not address the possibility of sampling bias (both in reported cases and those who filled out the entire questionnaire), but it does make for more reported cases per year.
I noticed that he alarmism on the internet being an unsafe place for women seems to have sparked up shortly after studies indicated they were about as safe online as men.
If any woman reads this I can tell you that this 47 year old man has certainly been cyber-bullied - there are just some nasty mean people on line.
I try to hold my self to the standard of attack only the idea espoused or the claim being made - never attack the person.
the insane entropy of the internet is what makes it so fun
By that definition, the internet is unsafe for everyone.
The internet is definitely not a safe place for women, and they should make sure they have a strong man by their side at all times to catch them when they swoon. Ladies, we will protect you!
i love this series.
Great stuff, but it would be great if you apply a de-esser filter to the audio
As a man I have never been as threatened in the online community, as I have this past month. Being pansexual hasn't gotten me nearly into as much trouble as the simple fact of my biology. Bigotry seems to be rampant at the moment.
Dear Factual Feminist, I would like to propose that the subject for the next video be the "He For She" campaign that recently went viral due to Emma Watsons EU speech.
There are no stated goals on the campaign website or in the speech apart from "inviting men to the debate" by having them swear their allegiance in the form of spreading the message through social media.
If you could highlight the significance or this movement or perhaps the less desireable sides of this, I feel it would be an important step towards more levelheaded discussions and a keypoint to start proper unbiased debates.
I seriously don’t get how someone can get bullied online for weeks. Can’t you just turn ur computer off or go to different website or change apps.
subscribed!
Anyone that calls the police over a threat online has mental issues. In most cases people have no idea where you live. I most cases they are not even in the same state or country for that matter. If you can't handle the free public internet, then you should be on it.