Harassment, male privilege, and jokes that women just don’t get A familiar theme comes up frequently in internet discussions: Women who complain about online harassment are just missing the joke. As an initial descriptive matter, it’s pretty clear that women and men are often treated differently in online discussion. (Quick, name a case in which someone was harassed online. A few months ago, John Scalzi noted that: In my experience, talking to women bloggers and writers, they are quite likely to get abusive comments and e-mail, and receive more of it not only than what I get personally (which isn’t difficult) but more than what men bloggers and writers typically get. That bears repeating: The Internet is not the same experience for men as it is for women. Why is the internet a different place for men than for women? Men build discursive spaces and discursive norms based on their own experience. Women as a group have a vastly different experience with the idea of sexual violence. The same goes for statements about violence in general.
What the LDS church tells young women I grew up as an only child in a single parent family. It wasn't easy. But one thing I remember clearly--very clearly--is learning there were no restrictions on what I could do. What I could achieve. I did yard work and housework. In baseball, I was always a first pick. I had NO gender related role given to or demanded of me. As the right's political discussion becomes more painfully and unequivocally anti-woman every day, simultaneous with the notion that someone somewhere may be waging a war on religion, I wanted to change course and provide the proof that at least one religion is waging a war against women and has been for 150+ years. And it may help to explain why he is dangerous to women of any age. This material is being taught today. And as a woman watching this disgusting display of patriarchal rivalry over my reproductive system, I am reminded that now more than ever, we women and the men and boys that respect and love us need to battle this with a full-throated response.