Have you thought of using your first two initials with your last name? That's gender neutral and also your real name. I think there's little doubt that the web is becoming a male stronghold, with women feeling less and less comfortable posting except on female-friendly sites. Even if they don't have your emotional reaction to conflict and insults, women are, I think, finding that posting *as women* on many sites is just not worth the effort.

I wish I had a thicker skin like some women, who've weathered the attacks in service of something greater.

Maybe the real violation here is that any newspaper would so unthinkingly ask women to expose themselves in this way. One could say one does that with letters to the editor, but then those are carefully vetted and few and far between, and do not entail the give and take of a comments section. I believe we are being indirectly excluded from these fora because of a reality mainstream news organizations don't want to admit.

I just hadn't taken the time to write a formal editorial (there we go again) to the N&O to point out what you have--and what confirms most of our personal experience anyway--that the vitriole directed against women online far exceeds that against men. I think this was directed toward any woman writing in public prior to the Net, and particularly about feminism, if it even got published, but the anonymity has ratcheted it up several notches.

I just don't think I should have to change my first name by which my FB community knows me to my first initials in order to be able to post on the N&O. That's the position in which the insensitive editorial staff puts women.

some magazine, I think it was Vanity Fair, published my full name and my town on an anti-Bush letter to the editor.

The loons came out of the woodwork, and it was actually frightening.

Don't put identifying information on it.

I mean, we talk about how women are attacked online, but have we ever talked about how we, on DU, are attacked, and how we shape our behavior accordingly?

I unthinkingly used my real first name when signing up for a Smirking Chimp account in 2003. Mistake. I finally left that community after a few years because the anti-feminist and pro-pornography attacks were so vicious, and made this my primary online group. I have found this community much more accommodating--at least we have a core group of feminists that's grown and grown, and the level of what I endured on SC has never been tolerated here.

A guy I know in Durham (a published writer) used a handle on Smirking Chimp with a fictional women's name in it for awhile and told me he had to change it because of how attacked he was. He didn't seem to think that was anything to protest--he just changed his handle to his real name, and problem solved. Sigh.

Then I can let it all hang out.

Actually, I would never eviscerate people the way he did (though I can), but it'd be good to return to blissful anonymity where I can argue from a gender-neutral without that constant worry that I'll be annihilated because I'm a woman.

It's not just our names--it's that if we have our photos on there, whatever we look like will be used to bash us--dumb blonde, too plain, too old, too young, too angry, too ditzy, whatever. I shouldn't have to change my appearance in any way, shape, or form to ward off attacks.

For some reason this is encapsulating 35 years of harassment and invalidation. If we fully inhabit our minds and voices, and stop policing ourselves as women for a second, we're blindsided and punished for the audacity of taking ourselves seriously. AND blamed for not having been more vigilant.

That's what I hate to see here, among us--that we have to silence our voices like this. Goddamnit!

*especially* on political boards.

Right wingers are nasty, narrow, mean, and spiteful. They also love to come after women, the people they want to be under control the most.

It's not just you. There are a lot of men out there who don't consider us human and take a great deal of enjoyment out of hurting us.

Add to that it's a pro rape culture, and you've got a lot of excellent reasons to hide behind a screen name if you're female.

For speaking up, for speaking out, it doesn't have to be about 'women's issue's' or feminism; women are trained to be cautious, to be careful, to check their surroundings, of being blamed for crimes against our person for not being careful or cautious enough. As people have made the transition to electronic communication, it quicker became clear why; their are FAR too many men who consider themselves a type of predator--ones who consider women prey. Or that threats of rape and violence are just great fun---'and they're not actually serious so lighten up!'

Now as much as I would like to honestly respond 'despite all that my attitude is bring it on motherfuckers'--because that's how I feel --it's really not, I'm cautious, I'm careful, and I'm sick of this shit.

I use 'ismnotwasm' on a number of places, but not FB

and since my experience with people hand delivering threatening letters to my home, I realize that nothing can be gained by giving the absolutely insane people out there the opportunity to bring it on when they can find out where you live.

And we all know, those people are truly insane and chock full of the need to take their hate out on some woman.

Many feminist bloggers have quit after being subjected to the onslaught of antifeminist, MRA hate.

When we talk about women being silenced, that is not a metaphor. That is the literal truth. That is the point of this harassment. That is their intent, and the reason they're doing it is because now rape culture has come under the microscope, and that's something they thought they'd gotten away with - what with all these decades of "sex-positive" fun feminism. Now all of a sudden their entitlement to women's bodies is being called into question - by more than just "Dworkinites" - and the backlash has only just started.

The explosion in gonzo porn, additional profit motives in rape, and aggregation of anonymous woman-hating, trophy-seeking males into online fora is one thing. On the other, in the late 80s, it was so hard to get people to care about pornography and rape and sexual harassment. I definitely credit the capacity for women to communicate with each using multiple media, and communicate "anonymously" to larger fora, with raising more awareness.

Witness the recent thing with our Pittsboro scientist, Bora somebody, with Sci American. A few women posted anonymously about how he sexually harassed them. Once they all saw that they had the same story and he had this big pattern, it went more viral and they were believed. We still have a de facto 1/5 a person rule with women, where our testimony is less meaningful when it's just one. It takes five of us before we're believed over the credible guy, but damn, the Internet lets that happen. And that's awesome.

Thanks for your comments. You give me strength.

You can block people from bothering you on FB, you can moderate on your own blogs, you can notify administrators of any trolling or harassing behavior.

Living your life in irrational fear is no way to go. This is same type of mentality that says women shouldn't do anything alone.

Last edited Sun Oct 20, 2013, 11:20 AM - Edit history (1)

When a news organization requires FB logon as a prerequisite for public commentary, so that no one can "post anonymously," then my name is there and searchable so that people can step out of the virtual world into "meatspace" and contact me otherwise.

I think some fears are rational, judging by others' comments. If going somewhere alone means I stand a much greater chance of being raped, I think I won't. I think that's a rational response to a world where women are sexually predated upon for most of our lives, don't you?

no. that does not work for me. i deleted. i did not want it on my FB either but automatically went there. so it seems i am stuck not commenting. no, i wont have the real me out there.