Monday, June 11, 2012

Speaking up about harassment: a good thing

I recently had a spike in views on my responses to feminist critique post. It looks like I was linked on an Icelandic news site, which isn't the kind of meta-news a legit blog would be excited about, but since I'm just a baby blog I thought it was kind of cool. I have only the most vague idea of the context in which I was linked, since Google's Icelandic-to-English translator is, well, special.

Anyway, since speaking out about online harassment appears to be a hot topic here and elsewhere, I wanted to go ahead and share someone else doing the same. I have followed Anita's videos at Feminist Frequency for a long time, because I appreciate the depth of research she puts into her videos, and I also am generally interested in the topics she chooses to tackle. Recently, Anita requested funding on Kickstarter to complete a video series about sexism in video games. The post I've just linked includes over 100 stomach-turning, awful comments she received in response to her request. Some are much, much worse than others, in terms of violent sexism. Collectively, though, even the more mild ones contribute to an environment that just says "Shut up. Stop talking. How dare you talk about this. Fuck you for having an opinion."

If my summary seems hyperbolic, just please go look at her video. Notice her demeanor. Notice how calm and normal and smart and not angry and not man-hating she seems. Then, read as many of the comments as you can stomach, and imagine receiving those comments on every single thing you post online, and let me know if you still think that I'm exaggerating.

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