online harassment Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Guardian Tackles Online Abuse on Their Site

April 26, 2016 By HKearl

Most people, especially women, who write about feminist topics like street harassment and rape culture have dealt with unpleasant and even harassing comments, tweets and emails in response to their piece/s. I know I have.

Fortunately now there are many efforts underway to address online harassment, and one of the latest is at the Guardian. Earlier this month, they started an initiative to make their comments sections better:

“We need to do more to facilitate respectful discussions and constructive debate everywhere on the site, as well as to protect our staff from the abuse and harassment that has become a routine part of writing for the internet for too many people….

We are going to be implementing policies and procedures to protect our staff from the impact of abuse and harassment online, as well as from the impact of repeatedly being exposed to traumatic images. We are also changing the process for new commenters, so that they see our community guidelines and are welcomed to the Guardian’s commenting community.”

The Guardian also examined their 70 million comments and found that 2%, 1.4 million, have been blocked for violating the Guardian’s community standards. Among the other findings (full info here), they found that articles written by women consistently attracted a higher proportion of blocked comments than articles written by men.

I find their efforts really encouraging and I hope other outlets follow suit. My dream is that one day, we will not have to fear reading the comments section.

Related:

1) How some women are tackling online harassment;

2) Eight things not to say to someone facing online abuse.

Obama Talks about Online and Offline Public Sexual Harassment

March 17, 2016 By HKearl

Yesterday, President Barack Obama talked about both online & offline sexual harassment in public spaces!! I believe this is the first time he has publicly done so regarding street harassment, so this is big.

Here is a short excerpt, but to read or watch more, jump to around minute 40 of the video (for online harassment) and 50 (for offline harassment).

“…’Obviously, this is not unique to the Internet,’ Obama added. ‘Women have been up against this kind of nonsense since the beginning of time. As long as women have dared to enter the public space — whether they’re fighting for their rights or simply walking the streets, there have been times where they’ve been harassed by those who apparently see the mere presence of women as a threat.’

Obama said that while it’s important for women to continue to speak up about online harassment, it’s also integral that men join in. ‘This is not just the role for women,’ he said. ‘It’s about men speaking up and demanding better of themselves and their peers, their sons, their friends, their coworkers. Because we’re all in this together.'”

Thank you so much, Obama!!

Calling out #ShirtlessShamers

February 23, 2016 By HKearl

Our ally Lindsey of Cards Against Harassment wrote an excellent guest piece for The Daily Beast. Here are two excerpts:

“This January I started #ShirtlessShamers2016, a Twitter hashtag in which I juxtapose men’s sexist, slut-shaming social media posts about women’s bodily respectability with their own bare-chested pictures. This isn’t my first adventure in challenging misogyny through social media; you may also remember me from such other controversial positions as, “Street Harassment: Please Stop Doing It.” …

When I started using the #ShirtlessShamers2016 hashtag, I expected things to stay funny. Light. Playful. Sexism and gender-based double standards aren’t really funny, of course, but lampooning shirtless broskies who are heavy on ego and light on self-awareness has a certain silliness to it. They flex their pecs and regurgitate some casual misogyny, and we marvel, bemused, that they aren’t in on the joke.

But, as is often the case, we laugh to keep from crying.

I am about five weeks into the hashtag, with more than 100 posts (conveniently gathered here for your viewing pleasure) and the recurring themes are far from funny….

Unfortunately, this isn’t just a problem of young men being doofuses. The double standard is pervasive, and touches on the fundamental right for girls and women to be in their own bodies without being deemed provocative and inappropriate and at risk. That right matters. It matters for all women but especially for black women and girls, whose bodies are hypersexualized from very young ages. It matters for people like my sister, who has had strangers chastise her for breastfeeding her infant even as men jog half-naked nearby. It matters in how we continue to talk about street harassment as a problem related to clothing choices or other respectability proxies, no matter how many marketable white women go viral for reminding us street harassment happens to women in t-shirts and jeans.

This issue also matters for people like me who have survived sexual violence and routinely run into uninformed rape apologists and enablers who desperately want to prop up a myth that sexual violence is a problem contributed to by clothing or other victim choices. (It’s not.) It matters for people who have been bullied and shamed by their classmates and schools for the crime of developing parts unilaterally declared to be inappropriate or distracting. (They’re not.) It matters for people in the sex industry who are treated as if they shed their humanity when they shed their clothing. (They don’t.) The list goes on. Holding men and women’s bodies to a different standard as far as nudity and sexuality is concerned matters for everyone who has come to accept that no amount of fabric can fix an underlying culture problem.”

Thank you for all you do, Lindsey, to call out double standards and fight for women’s right to respect and dignity!

Speech Project and Online Harassment

February 16, 2016 By HKearl

There’s a new Speech Project about online harassment at Women’s Media Center, led by our friend, ally and supporter Soraya Chemaly!!

“The prevalence of online harassment toward women leads them to feel limited in their online interactions, and its frequent dismissal leads them not to take their own harassment seriously. By treating online harassment as the crime that it is, we make women less likely to blame themselves — because going online should not be another item on the list of behaviors women are told to avoid to stay safe….

The website contains a glossary of terms related to online harassment, research and statistics about its different forms, and a wheel demonstrating the different types, consequences, and legal classifications of online harassment.”