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Trolls exist on the internet. Bayley is just supporting negative stereotypes about how women can't handle the pressure when she lets a troll get the best of her
by monochromatic 15y ago
Trolls exist on the internet. Bayley is just supporting negative stereotypes about how women can't handle the pressure when she lets a troll get the best of her and changes her whole life because of him.
- scott_s 15y agoExcuse me? At what point do you stop calling someone a "troll" and start calling them a "stalker"? Perhaps the harassment she received was so much that changing her whole life greatly improves her quality of life. Is she still "just supporting negative stereotypes" then?
- maximusprime 15y agoI think the point is that men have to put up with such shit all the time online.
- scott_s 15y agoNo, I don't think they do. And if you think they do, I don't think you understand the scale of what she's talking about. It's linked several times in this thread. Please read it.
- maximusprime 15y agoI've read it. There are billions of disturbed weird people in the world. Lots of them make it online. This is one of them. It's a shame she let it bother her.
- scott_s 15y agoSo it's her fault that a continued campaign of harassment "bothered" her? Have you ever experienced anything like that, or are you just guessing what it would feel like?
- monochromatic 15y ago> Have you ever experienced anything like that, or are you just guessing what it would feel like? White-knighting aside, have you?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- scott_s 15y agoNo, but I'm also not telling someone who is experiencing it what they should do.
- maximusprime 15y agoWell, she didn't do herself any favors by talking at conferences about women in tech, or setting up a feminist movement. If you wanted to attract abuse, that's a good way to go about it. It should be expected. Why didn't she talk at conferences about code?
- lizzard 15y agoI'm not sure if you're joking and I hope so, but she did give talks on coding, and then after giving one talk about women in tech that was quite successful and changed a lot of people's thinking, a lot of other conferences invited her to give similar talks in an attempt to make their own environments more diverse/welcoming, and in fact she turned down many more. I shouldn't even have to say that but apparently someone does. And if setting up a movement to support other women means that we're setting ourselves up as targets "to attract abuse" then you know what, count me in, because that only means we need MORE activism.
- mtoddh 15y agoGot any links/citations that support this assertion? Specifically, cases where men in the FOSS community are being harassed because of their gender.
- prakashk 15y agoAs CJefferson sain in another comment on this post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3163613 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3163613): The harassment women get is much, much worse than men. Me and my wife are both computer scientists, and have both given talks at many conferences. My wife and our female friends consistently get much more, and much worse, harassment than me and our male friends. There is no comparison, and over time I've seen it grind several women down to the point where they just give up (fortunately not my wife yet). I think everyone should help to reduce the often hostile attitude in IT and FOSS in particular, and a fairly obvious part of that is to stop treating women so badly. Just treating them like everyone else would be a fine start.
- cube13 15y agoIf it's at that point, wouldn't it be more prudent to get the police involved? Restraining orders exist for this exact reason. The article(and blog post) imply that this has been a long-term issue, and the level of threats are pretty terrible, even to the level where most good forum admins would seriously think of tipping off the police if these messages were brought to their attention.
- kenjackson 15y agoRestraining orders don't work. They're rarely enforced. Police don't have the bandwidth, at least in the US, to care. As a friend in law enforcement told me -- restraining orders exist as a paper trail for police to be able to point out how bad the person was when something does happen. It's not there to actually protect the victim. The fundamental problem with stalking is no one in law enforcement cares until you're actually dead or physically hurt. If I were the potential victim I'd probably care at a slightly earlier stage. With that said, mocking the police online will get you a fullscale investigation: http://www.kirotv.com/news/28758502/detail.html http://www.kirotv.com/news/28758502/detail.html
- dreww 15y agoyour faith in the police to protect women is almost charmingly naive.
- monochromatic 15y agoStalker? She should get the police involved then. Oh wait, she did, and they weren't interested because it didn't rise to that level.
- chc 15y agoThe police are very often uninterested until the offender actually commits some act of violence. This has no bearing on whether it was stalking.
- plam 15y agoWe don't know the full details. There're probably more going on in her life than just the stated incidents in this one article. Your argument, however, is blaming the victim for her unsolicited suffering.
- monochromatic 15y agoI'm not blaming her. Dude sounds like a dick. But there are dicks out there in the world. How we deal with them is indeed up to us.
- zzzeek 15y agothis reads like classic "blame the victim" to me.
- mootothemax 15y agoBayley is just supporting negative stereotypes about how women can't handle the pressure when she lets a troll get the best of her and changes her whole life because of him. No, you're helping to perpetrate such a myth by writing a comment like this without taking into account all the facts. Unless you label people who repeatedly phone your employer and make accusations of paedophilia as mere trolls.