Post by Ayla on Mar 10, 2016 14:52:31 GMT 8
www.teenvogue.com/story/female-online-harassment-femsplain
One morning I woke up to find something awful sitting in my email inbox. Something that made me physically ill and unable to get out of bed for hours. The subject was “Open for a surprise” and somehow it slipped past my spam filter and burned into my mind forever.
As someone who’s accomplished quite a bit for a woman of my age, people look up to me. I’m the founder of Femsplain.com, a community where anyone who identifies as a woman, non-binary, and other gender nonconforming people can share personal stories. You may have even seen a few of our articles here on Teen Vogue. They’re relatable, inspiring, and most importantly they are what we need on the internet today.
What I want to talk about is the stuff you can’t see from the outside when you’re someone who gets a lot of attention online: the ugly private messages, emails, the threatening phone calls, and all the stress and energy that goes into protecting yourself. I seem to attract all sorts of unwanted attention ALL THE TIME. I get messages daily from people who hate me for building a platform that exists to give women a voice. I just want to exist as a woman on the internet without having to “deal” with harassment every day. I find myself crying a lot more lately.
A new study finds that online harassment of women has become the “established norm," with 76% of women under 30 experiencing some form of abuse or harassment online and one in four women under 30 having received general threats of physical violence.
So back to my email. It came about after a self-proclaimed “anti-feminist” and generally awful person with a large online following tweeted a link to our website announcing that we were “shutting down.” We’re not shutting down, and I shouldn’t have opened the email, but it was too late. There I was, in a selfie I had tweeted only a few days prior with penises photoshopped over. It was really upsetting. After finally finding the strength to move from bed, I texted a friend about what was happening and came to the conclusion that I was “over it.” What I mean by that is, I'd actually run out of emotion to care about this current situation.
Sarah Sahim, a freelance culture writer who's been in similar situations, says, “I guess I have pretty thick skin and always have; that's not to say it doesn't get overwhelming sometimes. I don't feel the need to justify myself to trolls because their arguments are always baseless and invalid, and they're unwilling to learn. Their sole goal is to wind you up and upset you, so by giving them the time of day you're letting them win. Fortunately the internet is a place where you can simply ignore hate directed your way but that doesn't mean it can't be hurtful.”
It took just one tweet to send his hundreds of followers to send both me and Femsplain a flood of harassment and hate. Although he directly isn’t sending me these messages, it just doesn’t give me hope when I see accounts that were once verified, with hundred thousand followers, allowed to exist for the sole purpose of organizing harassment.
I’ve used my voice on social media to shed light on what I go through being a woman online. Blocking seems to be the easiest way to ignore, forget, and send them into irrelevancy. But you know what? It’s getting really tiresome. Like, I’m physically exhausted after a day of being told everything I’ve worked so hard on is a joke by faceless accounts on Twitter.
Akilah Hughes, comedian and writer, describes similar horrible experiences.
"It is tough seeing injustice and knowing that you'll be mistreated for speaking out against it, but I'm compelled to. Luckily (and sadly) my skin has grown thicker from being online and on YouTube for nearly a decade. It is exhausting. It's frustrating. Sometimes it makes me second-guess my own reactions to injustice. Like 'oh, well if a bunch of eggs on Twitter are calling me slurs, maybe I am wrong.'"
It’s a huge time waster blocking a few hundred accounts per week because the platform I love doesn’t seem to love me back. Don’t like being harassed on Twitter? Don’t use it. That’s the only option given to us. Considering 22% of women are active on Twitter, compared to just 15% of men, it feels like a huge oversight that more efforts aren’t being made to protect the people who so actively use it.
"I wish Twitter would actually do something when people report dangerous and damaging accounts," says Akilah. "I think if enough people block someone saying racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, etc., things, the algorithm should, one, not show you their notifications, or, two, delete their account. There's a difference between disagreeing with someone, and hurling racial epithets at them."
"From what I understand, in America it's super hard to remove a troll account without someone claiming they're violating the First Amendment, which is total bullsh*t," says Sarah. "When someone is making rape and death threats — just as I was receiving — I expect Twitter to do something about it and ensure my safety. I reported so many damn accounts and Twitter's only solution was to block them. REMOVE accounts causing people to leave the site because they no longer feel welcome. If Twitter feels that's too 'harsh' for whatever reason, instate a penalty system: three strikes and you're out."
Women, especially transgender women and women of color are constantly fighting a battle to safely use the internet everyday. We hide our true feelings and pretend we don’t care because we need to have this hard exterior, because we want to be strong for others going through similar situations. I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m too tired. It needs to be okay not to want to “fight back” and to be honest with how we feel. If we continue pretending these faceless, nameless trolls aren't hurting us, how can those in similar situations find and empathize with each other? We mustn't trivialize these harmful actions to our friends who are feeling the effects. We must spend more time listening and showing support.
Like many others I only want to use these platforms for good and for fun. I want to give a voice to those who don’t feel like they have one. I want to focus on building my company like other founders do without this additional layer of negativity and stress. Listen, I know that no matter what you do the trolls will always be there, but If I have to “deal” with the awful replies and setting up email filters each day so that I can still enjoy my time online, I’m going to deal with it in the most human way I possibly can.
One morning I woke up to find something awful sitting in my email inbox. Something that made me physically ill and unable to get out of bed for hours. The subject was “Open for a surprise” and somehow it slipped past my spam filter and burned into my mind forever.
As someone who’s accomplished quite a bit for a woman of my age, people look up to me. I’m the founder of Femsplain.com, a community where anyone who identifies as a woman, non-binary, and other gender nonconforming people can share personal stories. You may have even seen a few of our articles here on Teen Vogue. They’re relatable, inspiring, and most importantly they are what we need on the internet today.
What I want to talk about is the stuff you can’t see from the outside when you’re someone who gets a lot of attention online: the ugly private messages, emails, the threatening phone calls, and all the stress and energy that goes into protecting yourself. I seem to attract all sorts of unwanted attention ALL THE TIME. I get messages daily from people who hate me for building a platform that exists to give women a voice. I just want to exist as a woman on the internet without having to “deal” with harassment every day. I find myself crying a lot more lately.
A new study finds that online harassment of women has become the “established norm," with 76% of women under 30 experiencing some form of abuse or harassment online and one in four women under 30 having received general threats of physical violence.
So back to my email. It came about after a self-proclaimed “anti-feminist” and generally awful person with a large online following tweeted a link to our website announcing that we were “shutting down.” We’re not shutting down, and I shouldn’t have opened the email, but it was too late. There I was, in a selfie I had tweeted only a few days prior with penises photoshopped over. It was really upsetting. After finally finding the strength to move from bed, I texted a friend about what was happening and came to the conclusion that I was “over it.” What I mean by that is, I'd actually run out of emotion to care about this current situation.
Sarah Sahim, a freelance culture writer who's been in similar situations, says, “I guess I have pretty thick skin and always have; that's not to say it doesn't get overwhelming sometimes. I don't feel the need to justify myself to trolls because their arguments are always baseless and invalid, and they're unwilling to learn. Their sole goal is to wind you up and upset you, so by giving them the time of day you're letting them win. Fortunately the internet is a place where you can simply ignore hate directed your way but that doesn't mean it can't be hurtful.”
It took just one tweet to send his hundreds of followers to send both me and Femsplain a flood of harassment and hate. Although he directly isn’t sending me these messages, it just doesn’t give me hope when I see accounts that were once verified, with hundred thousand followers, allowed to exist for the sole purpose of organizing harassment.
I’ve used my voice on social media to shed light on what I go through being a woman online. Blocking seems to be the easiest way to ignore, forget, and send them into irrelevancy. But you know what? It’s getting really tiresome. Like, I’m physically exhausted after a day of being told everything I’ve worked so hard on is a joke by faceless accounts on Twitter.
Akilah Hughes, comedian and writer, describes similar horrible experiences.
"It is tough seeing injustice and knowing that you'll be mistreated for speaking out against it, but I'm compelled to. Luckily (and sadly) my skin has grown thicker from being online and on YouTube for nearly a decade. It is exhausting. It's frustrating. Sometimes it makes me second-guess my own reactions to injustice. Like 'oh, well if a bunch of eggs on Twitter are calling me slurs, maybe I am wrong.'"
It’s a huge time waster blocking a few hundred accounts per week because the platform I love doesn’t seem to love me back. Don’t like being harassed on Twitter? Don’t use it. That’s the only option given to us. Considering 22% of women are active on Twitter, compared to just 15% of men, it feels like a huge oversight that more efforts aren’t being made to protect the people who so actively use it.
"I wish Twitter would actually do something when people report dangerous and damaging accounts," says Akilah. "I think if enough people block someone saying racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, etc., things, the algorithm should, one, not show you their notifications, or, two, delete their account. There's a difference between disagreeing with someone, and hurling racial epithets at them."
"From what I understand, in America it's super hard to remove a troll account without someone claiming they're violating the First Amendment, which is total bullsh*t," says Sarah. "When someone is making rape and death threats — just as I was receiving — I expect Twitter to do something about it and ensure my safety. I reported so many damn accounts and Twitter's only solution was to block them. REMOVE accounts causing people to leave the site because they no longer feel welcome. If Twitter feels that's too 'harsh' for whatever reason, instate a penalty system: three strikes and you're out."
Women, especially transgender women and women of color are constantly fighting a battle to safely use the internet everyday. We hide our true feelings and pretend we don’t care because we need to have this hard exterior, because we want to be strong for others going through similar situations. I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m too tired. It needs to be okay not to want to “fight back” and to be honest with how we feel. If we continue pretending these faceless, nameless trolls aren't hurting us, how can those in similar situations find and empathize with each other? We mustn't trivialize these harmful actions to our friends who are feeling the effects. We must spend more time listening and showing support.
Like many others I only want to use these platforms for good and for fun. I want to give a voice to those who don’t feel like they have one. I want to focus on building my company like other founders do without this additional layer of negativity and stress. Listen, I know that no matter what you do the trolls will always be there, but If I have to “deal” with the awful replies and setting up email filters each day so that I can still enjoy my time online, I’m going to deal with it in the most human way I possibly can.
