The online abuse you never see, and the women who have to hide it from you
There’s been a lot of talk about cyber bullying and cyber violence this week, mainly because of Clementine Ford’s recent stand against it.
There’s a lot that can be said about victim-blaming of Ford, where the man attacking her immediately received sympathy when he rightly faced consequences, and she copped even more abuse.
Other people have addressed these issues already, and in reading the many reactions in past days, it struck me that there’s something in this topic that hasn’t yet been said.
For years, most women’s groups have inadvertently colluded in this online abuse by hiding and deleting it. This has – for far too long – allowed it to flourish and become worse over time.
Even more importantly, the people on the front line of this secret abuse are often completely hidden, potentially vulnerable, and invariably unpaid.
Those unfamiliar with online feminist activism might not know what goes on behind the scenes on many sites. So, after working for these groups for some years, let me spell some of it out. Men – some men – don’t think women should be allowed to speak. They’ll use any means they can think of to stop them. Mostly, at present, this involves bombarding women’s pages with abuse.
First, there are the comments. Daily, sometimes hourly, we’re told we’re ugly lonely fat lesbian prostitute sluts. (I don’t find any of those epithets an insult, by the way, but it gets wearying reading it over and over again.)
We are also not worth raping, not worth strangling, not even worth murdering. And it goes without saying that we’re stupid, weird, hopeless, crazy, diseased, bitches, whores, and on our rags. Then there are the garbled hate messages that can’t even be understood, let alone interpreted, and which only serve to prove the commenter doesn’t actually have any fully formed thoughts.
Oh – and we should also get back in the kitchen or the bedroom, the only places we’re useful. (We haven’t yet worked out how we belong in bedrooms when we’re not worth raping, but are open to suggestions about it.)
Then there the pictures – the dismembered, abused, bruised and tied up bodies, the porn, the dick pics, the “make me a sandwich” memes (hilarious), and the MRA links and stats from men furious their wives got custody of their kids, and who’ve spent all their time since proving just why their wives left, and why they got custody…
Lastly, there are the online attacks by organised groups of boys and men. A couple of years ago, I attended my twin sons’ graduation ball. It was a terrific occasion and we left the event at around 2am feeling proud and relaxed. On the way home I received a frantic text message from another moderator of a feminist page of which I was the Administrator – a troll attack was underway. As soon as I got home a team of five of us repelled this attack for more than four hours. Wave after wave of disgusting content landed on the page from all over the world, and we spent frantic hours deleting and banning. I finally got to bed at 6am, then got up for work an hour later.
This sort of thing happened a number of times. The group I worked for managed to weather these storms, but in other parts of the world women’s online groups were irreparably damaged and destroyed.
I could go on about the way men cause damage to women’s pages. Some of it is even more personal, frightening and damaging than what I’ve described, but to say more would be to give ammunition to those who seek to destroy women’s activism. I don’t even want to name the groups I’ve worked for, because that could leave them open to further attack. Suffice to say women battle every day, all the time, to keep online places safe for those who use them.
None of you see any of this behind the scenes action – or if you do, it’s fleeting and you think you imagined it. This is because moderators remove the crap before we all sink into the misogynistic mud. If women’s pages were unmoderated, you’d probably unlike them quick smart, because you’d be so appalled seeing what people are now calling online violence every single day.
It feels like being in a war zone, and in some ways it is. Moderators burn out and some are regularly triggered into panic attacks and worse. I’ve known moderators who’ve had to resign from doing this work in distress, and others who’ve had to go for counselling or other treatment. It’s exhausting, sometimes terrifying, and comes with no reward except solidarity and the feeling of achieving something worthwhile. For some, that’s enough. For others, it’s damaging, perhaps permanently so.
This is why Clem’s stand is so important. I used to toe the party line, in feeling this abuse should be removed and hidden. But doing so hasn’t stopped it, and what is happening to Clem proves that it won’t stop if we pretend it isn’t there.
So I’ve changed my mind.
I now believe we should all start to leave these comments on our pages and publish or tweet them when they come in via messages. I believe we should all start to contact employers and wives and partners when this violence is perpetrated. I believe we should talk openly about the threats against us personally. I believe we should lobby governments to toughen laws around this behaviour, and demand that those perpetrating it are charged and punished. I believe we must protect women in online spaces just as we are now demanding women are protected in their homes and communities.
Women are cleaning up messes in online spaces, just as we’ve always cleaned up other people’s messes.
Let’s stop doing it.