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I hate the idea that she's getting death threats and insults because of her gender. That's wrong. It's not because of her gender. It's because she's a notable
by criley 14y ago
I hate the idea that she's getting death threats and insults because of her gender. That's wrong. It's not because of her gender.
It's because she's a notable figure on the internet.
I challenge the reader to find any notable figure online who has held a controversial position and not been the target of death threats.
That is an Internet anonymity problem, not a gender problem!
Women are not the only targets of anonymous death threats online!
(Not to excuse the appalling behavior of anonymous cowards who point their threats at almost every notable news target. Seriously, go read the forums on a major partisan site. Vile, disgusting, hurtful and violent language aren't the exception, they're the norm).
By playing into the gender context we're playing once against into these stupid gender arguments where they don't belong.
"But they're using anti-women language"
Of course they are! If it were a crippled man being insulted, why not imagine the language they'd use. If it was a black man being insulted and threatened, guess the language they'd use.
They pick their language to troll their target. They pick it after picking their target -- the language isn't the reason!
And yet again, a non gender issue will be filed under sexism.
- theorique 14y agoThey pick their language to troll their target. They pick it after picking their target -- the language isn't the reason! Nailed it.
- aaronbrethorst 14y agoPlease explain how this situation would have worked if, instead of Adria, the original tweeter/picture-poster had been a white, heterosexual, Protestant man.
- pekk 14y agowhite men are never sent death threats, are you sure?
- czr80 14y agoWhat white men never get, and this is just an observation, I have no sides or deep interest in this mess, is a comment like: "this makes me re-think hiring white men, they're not worth the drama". I've seen a few of those around the place regarding Ms Richards.
- mladenkovacevic 14y agoAlso if a man did this, it wouldn't even register on the internet's "burn-the-hypocrite" scale and I would actually be able to read something else on HN.
- vor_ 14y agoI don't really think this is a worthwhile route to go down. Someone could very well argue that if a man took a woman's picture because he overheard her making a vagina joke, it wouldn't have gotten any serious attention at all. Adria's complaint was taken seriously, at least by the conference organizers and the employer of the man who was fired, because she was a woman, and women are most often the recipient of sexism, especially in tech. Therefore, it's vital to take a stand against those who exploit that attention through their own cynical motives.
- vor_ 14y agoI don't know if anyone has actually said they won't be hiring women because of Adria Richards. What people have definitely said is that Richards may have hurt gender relations by causing male techies to be nervous around female co-workers. This was actually the most common reaction from women to this story, among those that I read. In fact, I think it's a very underappreciated aspect of this tale that so many women sided against her. A lot of them make the same kinds of dick jokes--including, as we now know, Adria Richards.
- pekk 14y agoThat's a pretty crazy comment, but should I think it represents men in general?
- Guvante 14y agoThe original tweeter made it about gender, so it wouldn't have worked the same if it were a man. The posters point is that if a man had been the forefront of a lot of news then death threats would have been thrown at him too.
- pyre 14y agoYou've never seen Anonymous go nuclear on white supremacists? Or back when they were trolling Tom Green's live web show? etc. The fact that this is a "Women in Tech" issue is what generated so much publicity, and the publicity is what draws the trolls. If two posters on 4chan's /b/ board had some exchange where one named-and-shamed the other over a penis joke, and he ended up losing his job? I don't think it's hard to imagine Anonymous coming down hard in the perpetrator, whether male or female.
- mladenkovacevic 14y agoThe difference is in the scale. I bet if you compared their campaign of "going nuclear" on white supremacists it would register but a blip compared to what's going on here. And it IS because she is a woman... and also because she's black. Those two probably each increase the measure of the e-mob response exponentially.
- pyre 14y ago| I bet if you compared their campaign of | "going nuclear" on white supremacists it | would register but a blip compared to what's | going on here. What is it that makes what's going on here worse than anything else? The DDoS attacks? The threats? The volume of threats? Has she been SWAT'd[1]? (I'm not heavily invested in this mess, so maybe I'm missing something) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting
- jimzvz 14y ago>I bet... >...probably... >And it IS... Believe it or not, your opinion isn't fact.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- randallsquared 14y agoThen it would have been about Christianity, or about how technology culture is repressed and not sex positive.
- jlgreco 14y agoProtestant like baptist or something? I guess maybe they could have stirred up some outrage from the religious crowd, over some sort of perceived religious slight? But most issues these days likely to offend fundamentalist protestants are likely to offend fundamentalist catholics too... I don't really know; what are you trying to get at?
- citricsquid 14y agoI'm a very generic white male with absolutely no real notability and because I have some degree of worth in a very small part of the internet I've had people threaten to drive to my apartment and beat me up because I did something they don't agree with -- they never do, but the threats happen. Entirely possible that Adria's gender or race contributed to this, but it definitely happens to white straight males too. You're looking at the wrong end, don't look at the victim, look at the aggressors: anonymity and distance is the cause. There will never be any recourse for those that threaten, so they'll do it until they're blue in the face.
- 650REDHAIR 14y agoAfter spending some time online I'm guessing the response would be pretty much the same, but with more "fag" comments.
- metajack 14y agoJohn Scalzi rebuts this pretty well I think: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/08/31/the-sort-of-crap-i-dont-get/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/08/31/the-sort-of-crap-i-don...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bpatrianakos 14y agoWhat's so great about his rebuttal? I read that whole thing and it's all anecdotal and seemingly exaggerated. Plus it's based on a single person. It rebuts something but it's definitely not the OP's point.
- lucisferre 14y ago> I challenge the reader to find any notable figure online who has held a controversial position and not been the target of death threats.
- signed0 14y agoAnd yet this article completely misses this: > Then the internet erupted, as male developers saw one of their own attacked for something that just about every man can envision himself doing. There were plenty of female developers that also expressed outrage, that also admitted to making similar jokes. The root cause of this entire debacle is that everything keeps being framed as a battle between all male developers vs a lone female developer.
- ucvbjk 14y agoYour axiom that gender is only an issue in choosing the language of abuse, rather than choosing to abuse, is unsupported. It's been demonstrated time and time again that there is a special type of vitriol reserved for empowered women in technology by certain types of men (who are, presumably, insecure about having a women 'interfere' in 'their' spaces). For a man to receive comparable treatment, he would have to have committed much greater transgressions in the eyes of such socially maladjusted, bigoted hackers - for example, Bill Gates at the height of his anti-Linux, monopoly-abusing role. And even then, such specialities as rape and other gendered violence would not be forthcoming.
- vor_ 14y ago> I hate the idea that she's getting death threats and insults because of her gender. That's wrong. It's not because of her gender. The initial backlash against her was genuine and came from both men and women. The trolling is from 4chan and the like, with the awareness that it will get seriously reported by sites like VentureBeat. It's like the "over 9000 penises" troll that Oprah Winfrey fell for. We've all been on the internet long enough to know what's going on.
- tunesmith 14y ago"If it was a black man being insulted and threatened, guess the language they'd use." uh... racist language? So wait, if I get riled up about something for non-racist reasons, but then use racist language... I'm not racist? I get a pass? Don't confuse your argument. You're saying that her gender is not SUFFICIENT for why she's getting those threats. Fine. But don't make the case that her actions were sufficient alone; that her gender (or race) has nothing to do with it. That just defends anyone who wants to use racist or sexist language any time they get bent out of shape about something.
- theorique 14y agoNo, you're still a racist, you just weren't a premeditated racist. A person choosing the most obvious, vicious, and personal way to insult and hurt someone is still guilty of acting prejudiced. Just because they would have used a different way to attack a different person does not get them off the hook for what they actually did.
- IvyMike 14y ago> I hate the idea that she's getting death threats and insults because of her gender. That's wrong. Maybe I'm a fool to try to figure out the motivation of anonymous jackasses on the internet, but: It sure feels like the passion and energy being put into some of the attacks is due to her gender.
- codex 14y agoI agree that this is an Internet wide problem. And yet, I suspect it is worse for women. This abuse is generated by the "long crazy tail" of the Internet populace. In general, this crazy tail is mostly male (testosterone/societal/genetic influences). Therefore, the crazies are more likely to sympathetic to people like them and less likely to be able to relate to those far outside their own identities (among this set, women), and so the abuse level will be higher.