(Normal Person) + (Anonymity) + (Audience) = Total Fuckwad
Removing the middle variable would change the results. It would also irrevocably change the internet, possibly for the worse. As a woman and occasional recipient of misoginous statements, I’m not sure I’d really want that.
However, given that internet anonymity is largely an illusion - and a vanishing illusion at that - it’s probably the future of the internet, twenty-five years from now.
I will say that the growing willingness by non-targets to discuss the problem is an improvement from five years ago, so that’s encouraging. It’s going to be a long trip but we’re on the path.
I was actually trying to explicitly avoid making that argument; I was using construction as a “low paid, dangerous job” not as a "job man is suited for due to strength differences. Generally, I think that jobs where size or strength are a limiting factor are being quickly replaced by automation, or robotic assistance, anyway.
The rest of what you say is a fair description of the issues, though.
I likewise have some level of agreement with the posters saying “DNFTT”, although at some point it feels like you’re doing nothing to resolve a problem. Which may be the right way to resolve the problem, but it’s not as satisfying.
I don’t really have anything to say on the subject of how to boost female-hosted channels, but I can say a thing or two about anti-female abuse.
Here’s one way to start making things better: change the mindset of many feminists regarding internet trolls. Stop feeding them. I’m reminded of this list.
Guys, newsflash. This is exactly the opposite of what you want to happen. Don’t feed the trolls. Stop playing the goddamn victim - yes, maybe you are, but you know what? As long as you keep acting like it, this shit will never get better. A lot of these internet sexists are simply bad trolls. They’re looking for attention; to get a rise out of you. And you know what doesn’t help there? Turning off ratings and comments on your youtube channel. Putting up a big fat list of all their comments. Acting like a victim because people on the internet say they want you to get raped. That’s what they want.
But of course, that’s what some of the feminists (and I feel free to include, among others, Rebecca Watson, Anita Sarkeesian, and a whole mess of the whole Skepchic and Atheism+ groups in this) thrive off of this kind of shit. They want this kind of controversy, because it gets them views. It gets them pity. They are professional victims, and are only making everything worse for everyone else. Ignore them. Don’t spend time responding to them. Don’t shut down your comments (I hope I don’t have to explain this one). Don’t pull bullshit like Anita Sarkeesian did, going on CNN and complaining about internet trolls. That encourages them. If the troll is not someone who’s attached to a brand name (like, say, a high-traffic youtube channel, or a major online gamer), then posting their online account saying horrible things does nothing but egg them on.
Here are two STEM-specific examples off the top of my head, though maybe not precisely what you’re looking for…
Consider I Fucking Love Science. It started as a Facebook page in March of 2012, and quickly became really popular; it currently has 8.7 million followers. Then one day, this happened: the person running the page mentioned her twitter feed in a post asking for recommendations on good science feeds to follow. Her twitter avatar is a picture of her. She is female, a fact which she had previously made no secret of, but when people saw her photo, it kind of blew up. She noted later that every single comment on that thread, whether positive or negative, was about the fact that she’s female. And a huge number of the comments were about her appearance. So in that one instance, the comments were nearly 100% sexist and/or bullying. However, I can’t imagine that’s anything like a representative sample of comments on her pages in general. My impression from following on Facebook is that it’s not terribly common, though she definitely does get some, like the one she made her twitter bio: “a liberal, freckle-faced slut”. On the other hand, I don’t know how many people on FB know she’s a girl, since she only had about half her current followers at that time, and she doesn’t post about herself very often.
Then there’s Danielle Lee, who writes the Urban Scientist blog for Scientific American. She was approached by an editor at Biology-Online about doing some writing for them. She asked about what the task entailed, including what compensation there would be. When told she would not be paid, she very politely declined. The editor’s response was, “Because we don’t pay for blog entries? Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?” She posted about the incident on her blog. There were various repercussions, some to be expected, some less so. The post was taken down by SciAm almost immediately, but later reposted. Ms. Lee was criticized by some for discussing what they saw as an isolated, personal incident in the context of the scientific community at large. She was praised by others for the very same thing. The Biology-Online editor was apparently fired. And after reading her post, another science writer posted her own story about being harassed by the SciAm blog editor, Bora Zivkovic, thus prompting other women to share similar stories about him. They, too, were criticized by people who knew and respected Zivkovic. He didn’t dispute their accounts, however, but rather acknowledged them, apologized, and ultimately, resigned his position.
So: what, if anything, do these examples really tell us about the magnitude of the problem? On the one hand, I’m sure that these events don’t represent the daily experience of these women. These things are of note because they’re unusually egregious. On the other hand, I’m equally sure they deal with plenty of smaller, subtler, more mundane stuff on a regular basis. So how do we quantify how bad that is? Does the percentage matter, as you suggest? I think it certainly does, to a point. But what about the fact that it’s almost all, and almost only, women who have to deal with this kind of crap at all? I mean, yes, as Simplicio and others point out, it’s the internet, so there will be fuckwads. But in response to this point, you ask:
And to me, that’s the crux of it - not everyone’s getting these comments, I think. In my experience, women get sexism, and gay people get homophobia, and so on, in addition to, not instead of, the typical fuckwaddery. So I would argue that women, gay folks, non-whites, and other groups are subjected to not just a different type, but a greater amount of fuckwaddery overall.
How bad is it? Bad enough that we should try to fix it? In my opinion, yes. So…
Search me, dude. I agree with others that the problem is an extension - and, due to anonymity, a magnification - of issues in society as a whole. It’s not the internet that needs fixing, per se, but rather the people doing the internetting. In my examples above, a lot of what happened didn’t even take place online. So it’s hard to discuss online interactions in isolation.
Still, in general, I think DNFTT is a good policy, along with silent deletion when possible. But as you acknowledge, that can feel a lot like not doing anything. And a big part of the problem is that it depends on how you define both “trolling”, and “feeding”.
For instance, a lot of the comments Ms. Andrew of IFLS got on the twitter post were of Inner Stickler’s “Nerdy Hotness!” variety, like: “you mean you’re a girl, AND you’re beautiful? wow, i just liked science a lil bit more today ^^”. I’d never call that comment “trolling”; it wasn’t vulgar or even grammatically incorrect, and I’m dead certain that the author intended it as a compliment - and it would have been a very nice one, indeed, in the appropriate context. Similarly, I’m certain that you had nothing but positive feelings toward Ms. Graslie when you thought “Dang, she is both smart AND pretty cute!” But unlike Ms. Andrew’s commenters, you recognized that this would be inappropriate to actually say to her unless she had invited comments on her appearance, and you understood that the mere fact that she is visible does not constitute such an invitation in and of itself. The problem is that when a perfectly nice guy - let’s call him Alan - posts, “Wow, you’re smart and beautiful, the whole package!” then Brian posts, “Yeah, you’re gorgeous!” and Cory posts, “Sooo sexxxy!” and Dan posts “schwiiiing!!!” and Ed posts “i want 2 cum on yr tits lol”. There’s obviously a huge difference between Alan’s comment and Ed’s. But comments like Alan’s can and do encourage comments like Ed’s in this way. And even Alan’s comment, sweet as it is, can be a bit demoralizing, because it reminds the woman in question that no matter what the context, her gender and her appearance are never considered totally irrelevant. So one thing that can help is to do as you did and refrain from making even those mostly harmless comments like Alan’s. (In fact, you could just try not to comment on women’s appearance at all when it’s not explicitly the topic of conversation. I’ve been trying to do this myself recently, and I’m surprised at how difficult it actually is.)
Another problem with DNFTT is that sometimes the commenter is not actually trolling or trying to rile people up, but just trying to be funny. For instance, in this recent thread, the poster at #36 writes a perfectly normal, genuine post, clearly intended to be reassuring, and then caps it with a sexual joke. Merely ignoring the comment doesn’t really help, because he probably wasn’t looking for an outraged response. I’m pretty sure he was legitimately trying to participate in the conversation, and also trying to get a laugh - maybe even trying to cheer up the OP herself. Ignoring the post would be equivalent to saying, “Yep, that’s a valid contribution. Even if I didn’t find it very funny, it’s okay to say that.” Fortunately, in this case, the very next two posters called him out on the inappropriateness of his joke. He also got a mod note, but in my opinion, the response of his fellow posters is much more powerful. It demonstrates to him, and anyone else reading, that no, saying something like that is actually not okay in this context. And even better, the response did not come from the female OP, but from two other posters, both of whom are male, I believe. That demonstrates that it’s not just about one person or group’s sensitivities, but about what’s socially acceptable to the board as a whole.
Now, I highly doubt that either of these approaches will work on, say, YouTube comments. But anywhere there’s a semblance of community or social norms, which is actually a lot of the internet, we can apply social engineering in these ways to help fix these behaviors. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
As andros points out, what matters is why she doesn’t have any desire to be a programmer. Is it because she’s tried it and doesn’t get it, or doesn’t enjoy it? That’s cool, go teach. But maybe it’s because she’s thinks she can’t do it, or because no one ever thought to suggest it to her and it’s never even occurred to her she could, or because she thinks she’d rock at it but doesn’t want to spend her entire career putting up with always being the token woman in the group, then those are problems that can and should be fixed.
I very much agree with everything in your post, but I wanted to highlight this. There are trolls out there, but there are also a lot of people who are mostly decent but somewhat clueless at times. If someone pointed out to Alan how his comment was somewhat inappropriate, then he might have been bothered, but maybe he’d also think about the next time he posts. Trolls should be ignored or deleted, but the milder sexism or seemingly innocuous stuff should be called out.
Self-employed female consultant here. I’m currently negotiating for my next project. Just yesterday I had an interview where one of the things being offered was “travel home every weekend”; I countered both over the phone and later in writing with “3-day-weekend every other weekend”. That would make my total bill smaller and my life better - and while if I am being paid less per day than a man of comparable experience and skill I need to take a look at my negotiating skills, I certainly have no problem with being paid less per month if and when it means living better.
Every time I see stats about pay levels being compared at the international and even intersectorial level I wonder how much do pay structures influence any results; in the example above I talk about pay per day (which is how we actually negotiate it in my sector) vs pay per month or year. Another example:
I used to work in a company and location where anybody who had a certain job had the same salary level (any salary level included several jobs), anybody who had a certain salary level had the same salary, and seniority was an automatic “bonus” calculated as a % of base salary (it started counting based on the date you joined the company, not on the date you got that job-and-level).
For the same company and a different location, the total amount of possible salary levels was greater (16 vs 12), any job had a range of 2-5 levels, any level had a range of salaries, there was no seniority bonus but instead you got a raise or not every year.
Comparing both as if the structure was exactly the same seems to me to be somewhere between disingenous and dumb.
Quote myself: “Julio Iglesias’ daughter went ‘from a girl to a woman’ the day she got her menses, what do the rest of us need to do, have grandchildren?” Even someone who has the best of intentions can be irritating when they step on a toe that’s already sore.
And if you’re in a place where nobody knows your gender or sexual orientation, you get both. So yeah, lots of fuckwaddery around.
This can get rather complex rather quickly. For instance, once in Women in Computer Science we analyzed a pretty well done study* that suggested that certain facets of computer science culture made it less appealing to women in general. (The study wasn’t actually about CS, but rather a psychological study about what men and women in general terms deemed to be attractive or comforting in a field or environment) But much of the culture that repelled them was in no way directly misogynistic, sexist, or any other thing. The study simply said (or as simply as 10 pages of statistical analysis, experimental procedure, and graphs can be) that women tend to associate things like discussion of Sci-Fi books (or sci-fi memorabilia), or even the presence of junk food with masculine environments, and that the sheer aesthetics may inhibit their desire to join the field.
We had a very long discussion on it, and a lot of women were hurt because they felt like they were harming the cause of getting more women into CS by having that cardboard cutout of Han Solo or whatever else. There were some suggestions of adding things that women were found to mark desirable or more “feminine”, instead of removing existing culture (adding nature paintings instead of removing Star Wars posters, for instance). There are other little things like this too, for instance, a different study showed that women tend to prefer group projects while men prefer solo projects (again, in broad general terms), and it can be difficult to balance it so that we have more projects that cater to women without alienating men (or women without that preference). And even balancing the feasibility of adding more group projects.
The discussions can get rather awkward, because even a lot of women will tend to resist the findings. It tends to boil down to the fact that the women who already are in CS tend to be so because it was attractive to them, including a lot of the culture, which it’s now suggested we should change, which would alienate the women we already have in order to attract women we don’t have.
It raises a lot of problematic questions that aren’t easily answerable – will attracting more women cause the culture change naturally, or do we need to try and consciously change the culture attract more women? Is it even ethical to change the culture? Is it even possible? Is it sexist in and of itself to try and alter the culture just to attract women based on the statistical norm of what environments they find comforting (especially in opposition to existing womens’ aesthetic tastes)?
You see this with marketing too, any marketing that aims to attract women based on <real or perceived feminine norm> tends to split into the “OMG stereotype! Real girls don’t wear dresses!” and “what’s wrong with both wearing dresses AND doing science?” factions. And the problem is, I can see the arguments from both sides a lot of the time. Especially once you get into the loop of “marketing like this reinforces social gender norms we want to break” vs “marketing like this caters to current social gender norms, yes, but it is in order to attract women into breaking other gender norms we feel are more important to break”.
I don’t see the attraction of more women to STEM fields as an inherent good like a lot of people do. But I can’t deny that it can be tricky to come to a good decision about whether women finding STEM culture mildly repellent for purely innocuous reasons is an inherent ill we need to change, or if our only priority should be to limit bullying and true sexism (“women can’t do math” etc) and let the more subtle cultural issues persist due to the questionable ethics and feasibility of changing them.
I thought all YouTube comments were posted by morons. I mean, I thought that was a known thing, not a revelation: as in, the Earth is round, or bears shit in the woods.
Also, what’s wrong with “I’d totally do her”? I’d totally do her.
Okay, so she puts a ton of effort into writing, filming, and editing a video on science. Trying to interest people in science and provide thought-provoking content. Attempting to educate people to the best of her ability. She wants to educate people and raise awareness of certain scientific concepts.
“I’d totally do her” is about as relevant as “I like apples”. Okay, it’s irrelevant, so what? Well, the problem is that it’s an unnervingly frequent type of irrelevancy that women get. To the point that one has to wonder whether people actually find her sexual attractiveness more important than the actual content she’s working to produce.
There’s nothing wrong with the comment inherently, the questionable part is how frequent of a comment it is for a context where it’s not relevant.
Yeah, the reaction to the comment can get dumb. If a movie plays up a character as extremely sexy and the actress is kind of frumpy or average at best, it’s a legitimate comment to question the casting. But in a lot of contexts, calling the comment into question makes sense.
Jesus Christ, sometimes it seems that there’s no point to these discussions at all. The next thing I am going to say would get me warned at the very least, so I’ll shut up right now.
No, I’m not 12 and see no point in doing such a thing. My personality doesn’t lend itself to the ‘internet fuckwad’ type either. My point was simply that seeing people as being attractive and wanting to have sex with them is not a sexist (against women) thing in and of itself. It seems to me that we primarily need to work on the ‘people on the internet are generally idiots that spout the first thing that springs to their mind’ issue.
Can you express support for her various observations and premises, and then mention in passing that you’d like to do her? I’m okay with respecting a socially-acceptable sequence.
Not all. Particularly in skeptical circles you can often find invigorating discussion in youtube comments (interspersed by turd blossoms giving off their stench).
It’s irrelevant and reducing the entire video to one completely non-central aspect: the woman as a sex object. That’s not okay. It essentially shows that you care more about the woman being for your personal pleasure than you care about anything she had to say, regardless of how intelligent.
Women on the Internet tend to stay physically hidden usually because of a typical idea-
My looks shouldn’t determine my mind and my ideas.
As far as this particular lady goes though…
Look, this whole “Anti bully” stuff has gone on for WAY too long. You think you are going to stop trolls? Fat chance! The more you baulk and piss them off instead of ignore them, the more they like it and the worse you are going to get. It becomes a massive game and who F’n cares if you are a smart but naive woman? You are asking for trouble and I’m sure you are going to get it too! There is a term out there called a “LOLCOW” and the more of a rise they get out of someone by making them upset or mad or crazy, the more fun they have. If you simply ignore the most blatant trolling and flame bait then they will pretty much leave you alone.
Edit: Also, anyone who does see a woman as a sex object is actually pretty messed up, but just because one turd is being a turd doesn’t mean we need to close entire topics and debates on things. Just move on and realize you witnessed just another terrible dick.
What if you phrase it as “Your thesis on methodology for constraining the location of massive trans-Plutonian objects makes me hot; I’d totally do you”?*
*I would not actually say this ever. Even if it were true. Trans-Neptunian stuff is kind of sexy though.
It’s this kind of cluelessness that makes it hard for women to express their feelings about this topic.
There’s a guy at work who is always gushing over me. He focuses a lot over my looks but he’ll also tell me how smart I am every time I say a word with more than two syllables. When I don’t jump in his lap and kiss him all over in gratitude, he gets salty. “I’m just trying to be NICE!” I have told him as gently as possible that while I understand this, it is still inappropriate. He doesn’t gush over his male coworkers like this, and they are just as smart and as good-looking. Why should I get singled out? Why does it make me a feminazi to want to be treated with the same respect that everyone else gets? And also, why does he think I need that kind of treatment ALL THE TIME? Does he feel sorry for me? Is he trying to get something out of me? Does he think women are all suffering from low self-esteem or something?
I haven’t “reported” him. But every time he pokes his bald head into my doorway, I inwardly groan. I can’t wait for him to retire.
I’d almost rather he was a troll because then I wouldn’t feel bad about rolling my eyes at him. But he is a guy like you who thinks his well intentions are more important than my desire to not be creeped out.
