4 ms·

I think you leave out some extremely relevant points in your comment and have mischaracterized the situation. Lindy West is one of the poster children for the "

by beeboop 11y ago

I think you leave out some extremely relevant points in your comment and have mischaracterized the situation. Lindy West is one of the poster children for the "fat acceptance movement", a self described activist, cofounded a social media campaign called "Shout Your Abortion", and just released a book titled "Shrill" whose subtitle includes "Feminists don't have to be nice". She has extremely controversial views that she expresses in the most public way possible. Even if she is not deliberately trying to incite discord against her, I am not sure how she could possibly do it any more effectively. From what I can tell from my brief searching about her, she shoves extremely offensive (to many people) opinions in the faces of the public at large. She is just as complicit in creating an offensive environment on the internet as all the people who send her mean messages on Twitter. Just because she is on "the right side of history" in many of her viewpoints doesn't make it any more justified. Which is essentially my entire point - everyone offends everyone. You cannot stop it and it will never end. All you can do is insulate yourself from it. I think it's a pretty far stretch to call it victim blaming if I were to tell Lindy West to maybe not make a public, professional career out of advocating the most controversial opinions possible in the most public way possible if she didn't want to get called mean things on Twitter by people she's deeply offended.

apozem 11y ago
I don't especially care what she endorses. I've never read one of her articles. However, if you disagree with someone, you owe it to them to do it without death threats and faking their dead father. Also, you are absolutely blaming the victim right now. Endorsing left-wing opinions or writing opinionated books does not merit that level of emotional trauma. Saying her writing is equally as complimit in online toxicity as systemic harassment dodges the problem and blames the victim. Like I said in the other reply, I don't endorse a world where no one disagrees with each other. Don't put up a strawman for my position. Living with opinions you don't like is part of life. Harassment should not be.
- beeboop 11y ago
  Death threats are already illegal, so that's beside the point. The line between "voicing an opinion someone disagrees with" and "harassment" is pretty vague, especially when from one person's perspective, thousands of people voicing disagreement to you sure looks like harassment, despite no single person necessarily being harassing. Her opinions that she voices publicly are just as traumatic, if not more so, than someone pretending to be her dead father. She literally had a "Shout your Abortion" social media campaign. Possibly one of the most traumatic things a woman will ever go through, and she's encouraging people to discuss it as much as possible, even implicitly (or explicitly) suggesting it be discussed with pride. I think you'd have to be pretty delusional to not understand how that's extremely traumatic to a lot of people. >Endorsing left-wing opinions or writing opinionated books does not merit that level of emotional trauma People aren't being mean to her because she's a liberal or writing books, they're mean because she's saying and writing things that are offensive and traumatic to them. She's essentially thrown the first punch and getting upset that they're punching back. This isn't victim blaming anymore than it's victim blaming to say she shouldn't attack someone bigger than her if she doesn't want to get her ass kicked.
st3v3r 11y ago
"I think you leave out some extremely relevant points in your comment and have mischaracterized the situation. Lindy West is one of the poster children for the "fat acceptance movement", a self described activist, cofounded a social media campaign called "Shout Your Abortion", and just released a book titled "Shrill" whose subtitle includes "Feminists don't have to be nice"." I fail to see how ANYTHING in that justifies the crap she got. You seriously need to reexamine your life if you think it does.

by beeboop 11y ago

apozem 11y ago

I don't especially care what she endorses. I've never read one of her articles. However, if you disagree with someone, you owe it to them to do it without death threats and faking their dead father. Also, you are absolutely blaming the victim right now. Endorsing left-wing opinions or writing opinionated books does not merit that level of emotional trauma. Saying her writing is equally as complimit in online toxicity as systemic harassment dodges the problem and blames the victim. Like I said in the other reply, I don't endorse a world where no one disagrees with each other. Don't put up a strawman for my position. Living with opinions you don't like is part of life. Harassment should not be.

beeboop 11y ago
Death threats are already illegal, so that's beside the point. The line between "voicing an opinion someone disagrees with" and "harassment" is pretty vague, especially when from one person's perspective, thousands of people voicing disagreement to you sure looks like harassment, despite no single person necessarily being harassing. Her opinions that she voices publicly are just as traumatic, if not more so, than someone pretending to be her dead father. She literally had a "Shout your Abortion" social media campaign. Possibly one of the most traumatic things a woman will ever go through, and she's encouraging people to discuss it as much as possible, even implicitly (or explicitly) suggesting it be discussed with pride. I think you'd have to be pretty delusional to not understand how that's extremely traumatic to a lot of people. >Endorsing left-wing opinions or writing opinionated books does not merit that level of emotional trauma People aren't being mean to her because she's a liberal or writing books, they're mean because she's saying and writing things that are offensive and traumatic to them. She's essentially thrown the first punch and getting upset that they're punching back. This isn't victim blaming anymore than it's victim blaming to say she shouldn't attack someone bigger than her if she doesn't want to get her ass kicked.

st3v3r 11y ago

"I think you leave out some extremely relevant points in your comment and have mischaracterized the situation. Lindy West is one of the poster children for the "fat acceptance movement", a self described activist, cofounded a social media campaign called "Shout Your Abortion", and just released a book titled "Shrill" whose subtitle includes "Feminists don't have to be nice"." I fail to see how ANYTHING in that justifies the crap she got. You seriously need to reexamine your life if you think it does.