Pharyngula

Everyone’s talking about Kos, so in one sense he’s done something smart, and he’s going to rake in some more ad dollars over all this attention — but in another Kos has blown it, big time. He has dismissed the death threats against Kathy Sierra as a) same old story that he sees all the time, b) nothing to worry about, and c) reason to suggest that the victim ought to give up blogging, which, of course, is music to the ears of the “psycho losers” who carry out that kind of attempted intimidation. Is Kos really so tone-deaf that he doesn’t realize he has just sided with people who threatened to slit Sierra’s throat and rape her corpse?

I was one of a small crowd, including Bitch, Ph.D. and Norwegianity, who are well-disposed towards Kos and met him on his book tour in Minneapolis. I was at YearlyKos last year and am planning to go this year. We aren’t right-wing knee-jerk Kos haters, but the people who tend to side with the Kossacks on a lot of issues. And we’re all not just dismayed, but strongly pissed off at Kos for that dumb comment.

This is not the time to act snotty and superior towards the target of online hate; I know that we get inured to the petty, vicious stupidity of some of the worst of the web (yes, I get death threats too, and some of them are nastily explicit), but what the kind of ugliness directed at Sierra ought to do is wake us up out of that take-it-for-granted attitude and get us motivated to shine more light on the cockroaches. It is not appropriate to encourage the roaches by acting as if the problem is Kathy Sierra’s too-fragile hide — it isn’t. We all ought to be outraged when some no-name faux-macho cretin writes to us and tells us to shut up or he’ll shoot us in the head. There is the problem, the eliminationist assholes who thrive under the encouragement of AM talk radio, admire the posturing bullies like Limbaugh and Coulter and Savage, and think homicidal sexual fantasies are manly.

Kos had his chance to express his contempt for such tactics, and instead all he could do was trivialize them and state his contempt for their victim.

Comments

#1 Robert
April 13, 2007

I saw that too, and was quite upset. I believe the incident with kathy went well beyond a simple asshole saying I hope you die. There were many frequent, specific, and disgusting threats (with photoshopped pictures of her) that I think definately crossed the line into illegal territory.

The other problem was that these threats were allowed to exist on other blogging sites with no repercussions. I imagine that any commenter here who made death threats would at the least find their account banned and the comment deleted (and maybe their IP address reported to the police, if the threat was serious enough, which in Kathy’s case they seemed to be).

So yes, bloggin invites assholes, but this was way beyond what anyone should have to deal with. Shame on Kos.
#2 Dennis
April 13, 2007

So, why are you still planning to align yourself with this person who is (in your own estimation) a cretin? There are places other than YearlyKos to meet and discuss with liberals. In fact, if liberals have any sense, there will be ONLY places other than YearlyKos to meet and discuss with liberals, after this his umpteenth expression of sheer hatred for women.
#3 Philboid Studge
April 13, 2007

And yet, Sierra has taken Kos’ advice (at least temporarily), not yours. Is she wrong?
#4 David Wilford
April 13, 2007

FWIW, Markos spent his early childhood years in El Salvador, before he and his family left there in 1980 due to the ongoing civil war. IIRC, he did see the results of death squads there a time or two. I think this experience certainly affected his feelings about the U.S. “mercenaries” who were killed in Falluja, and it also probably affects his feelings about threats in general. I’m not trying to explain away anything here, I just think this is something to be aware of when making judgments about his not being very sympathetic towards Sierra’s experience.
#5 Dennis
April 13, 2007

Philboid,

PZ shouldn’t even answer that question, because it’s not his call. It’s Sierra’s life, it’s her call. She has to decide whether her life of blogging and conference appearances is with the harassment and risk of rape and murder (I will trust her assessment of the degree of that risk.)

The only thing the “blogging community” should be concerned with is support and reasonable steps to protect Sierra and others from assholes in the future.

Please step away from the victim-blaming ray.
#6 Robert
April 13, 2007

Just because she has decided to take a break from bloggin doesn’t mean that Kos was right. Essentially these online cretins have successfully intimidated her into a break. Ideologically it may have been wrong, but thats easy to say when you are weighing blogging versus your life.

The argument isn’t whether she should be taking a break (because the right answer is it shouldn’t be relevant, because the intimidation should never have been allowed.)

We should all be in arms over this kind of scumbaggery, and while the blogging code of conduct is kind of useless, that doesn’t excuse what happened or place any of the blame on the victim!
#7 Dennis
April 13, 2007

David Wilford,

… So? Some of us grew up in countries where rape is just a particularly violent way of proposing marriage. That doesn’t mean that we should excuse those people if they make an ass out of themselves spewing about how rape victims ought to get the fuck over it.
#8 Robert
April 13, 2007

Also, the excuse that “I’ve been through worse. so what you are going through shouldn’t be considered” holds exactly zero weight for me. I’m sorry your life sucked/sucks but that doesn’t give you a pass to write off other peoples victimhood.
#9 Grand Moff Texan
April 13, 2007

[KOS] has just sided with people who threatened to slit Sierra’s throat and rape her corpse

KOS did nothing of the kind, but then again I see your tag is “in stupidity.” Is this some kind of joke?
.
#10 Melanie
April 13, 2007

Markos is a sexist asshole. I’m a former front pager whom he dumped precisely because I’m female. He’s pulled this kind of sexist shit before.
#11 spork_incident
April 13, 2007

I’ve spent time with kos as well and found him to be a nice guy. When I read what he wrote about Sierra I had to double-check to make sure it was him. I never would have expected that.

And some of the comments were of the the “grow up, bitch” variety as well.

All in all it was an ugly thiing to write.

.
#12 pablo
April 13, 2007

I agree that Kos made a dumb mistake in tying the Sierra case to his very legitimate point about the blogger code, and trivialized it in the process Still, the over reaction to this is ridiculous. People who regard themselves as progressives want to shun Kos, because it always helps your cause to make it an exclusive club with purity tests. One commentater accused Kos of ignoring “electornic rape”. Seriously.
#13 Mike
April 13, 2007

I get it. It’s AM talk radio’s fault! It’s also the fault of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage!

I’m sure you won’t have a problem posting transcripts detailing this “encouragement”.
#14 Dr. Free-Ride
April 13, 2007

What bugs me the most is Kos’ suggestion that Kathy Sierra didn’t even really get death threats:

Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you’ll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said “death threats” don’t even exist — evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said “death threats”.

Because Kos totally knows the content of Kathy Sierra’s emails.
#15 craig
April 13, 2007

I always thought that hate and anger were just sort of background noise, that there are just always some idiots out there… but at the risk of bringing up the Imus thing again, I have heard that the Rutgers women are now getting death threats because of Imus’ firing.

That really underscores who at least some of his fans are, and how he helped feed a culture of misogyny and racism. You have people discussing the Imus thing and screechingly bringing up the Duke case, full of racism and sexist language, putting it across as an attack by women and minorities on the oppressed white male.

It occurs to me that there’s an entire generation that has been weaned on hatred and anger, shock jocks in their own minds, and its going to be a long painful process to educate these people (if we ever even get into a position to do that.)
#16 factician
April 13, 2007

I can’t speak for PZ, but I certainly don’t want to “shun Kos” over this. Kos said something *really* stupid. He should apologize, and move on. People make mistakes. And I’ve always hated “gotcha” politics where someone can ruin their career by saying something stupid. Kos should just apologize.

It’s too bad Kos said what he did, because he made a valid point that a blogger code of ethics won’t work. The people who will adhere to it more than likely already do. The asshats more than likely won’t.

But we can say as a group that we will give a *verbal* beatdown to anyone who makes threats. I guarantee that if someone made death threats against (for example) an IDiot on my blog, they’d have their comments deleted, even if I happen to think that IDiot is a dumbass. No one needs to be tossing death threats around, jokingly or otherwise.
#17 Ric
April 13, 2007

Yeah, let’s see how Kos reacts to what was obviously a stupid post on his part. A retraction would allow him to keep my respect.
#18 Dennis
April 13, 2007

… “it always helps your cause to make it an exclusive club with purity tests.”

pablo,

It’s not that he can’t be in the club, it’s just that he’s demonstrated, more than once, now, that he is not the sort of person progressives ought to be looking to for guidance and leadership. A political blogger sets him/herself up for that, and everyone defending him right now might as well be fawning over Dear Leader.

You know what would be great, and make this kind of okay? If he would come out and say “It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been an asshole. Sorry about that. I really shouldn’t make unsupported/unsupportable factual and moral claims and use them to pooh-pooh the experience of a fellow blogger.”

Every person speaking up on his behalf makes this apology less likely, emboldens his misogyny, and poisons the progressive movement.
#19 Robert
April 13, 2007

If he makes an apology and a retraction he could regain my respect. People do say stupid things baout positions that they didn’t know enough about (hmmm, creationism….) but if they can recognize it and be sorry for it then I can get past it.
#20 CalGeorge
April 13, 2007

I am for free epression on blogs – no code of conduct – but also for denunciation of any expression that goes over the line, like Imus’s “nappy-headed hos” and people making threats of violence.

If someone is being intimidated, we ought to stick up for that person, not tell them to relax or not to worry.

What are we trying to achieve? A better society?

Accepting the shit that is being spewed relentlessly at Liberals isn’t going to get us there.

A “seen it all – just live with it” attitude is the very opposite of what we need today.

Maybe Kos needs to take a vacation.
#21 NM
April 13, 2007

Sorry for kinda siding with stupid here, but I haven’t managed to grasp what’s so special about this case, why it matters, and why it’s not just an one time occurrence.

10 years ago, I was involved in a very lame Usenet argument, and an asshole called my employer. Embarrassing, but he was an ocean away. I can understand how this is upsetting, but I still don’t understand what’s so unusual. Shit happens, jerks happen.
#22 Krystalline Apostate
April 13, 2007

I’ve written on this here and
here.
Sierra’s a Java programmer. She doesn’t even write about politically polarizing issues, fer cryin’ out loud. But some cowardly dweebs start spewing misogynistic crap & the poor woman’s now scared out of her skull.
Grrrr….
I sent her an email offering to escort her if she gets offers to speak in the S.F Bay Area.
Because it takes a specific kind of cowardly bully to harass women, the kind that folds up quickly when a man walks into the picture.
#23 Robert
April 13, 2007

NM: Kathy Sierra is the victim of multiple death threats, complete with photoshopped pictures of her being suffocated with women’s underwear along with tag lines like: “I can’t wait to slit your throat and cum down your bloody gob.”

The people who are upset (myself included) are the ones who think that we shouldn’t just handwave this away and say she should just put up with it, but should instead stand up and fight this kind of sick misogyny.

If we just ignore it, and allow it to let Bloggers like Kathy decide to give up blogging rather than face the intimidation we are giving implicit support to those who would use these kinds of tactics to silence through fear those they don’t agree with, or see as less than human.
#24 factician
April 13, 2007

NM,

This wasn’t garden variety rudeness. This guy not only threatened rather graphic violence to her (and her corpse), he also posted her personal information online (address and social security number). This was serious enough that the cops took the threat credibly.

*Any* time someone threatens violence, whether it be at you or at someone you don’t like, we as bloggers should speak with one voice and condemn such idiocy. I think Bitch Ph.D. says it best:

The best way to make that clear isn’t to tell victims, publicly, that “if they can’t handle it” they should quit blogging. Nope. Instead, those of us who provide readers with opportunities to respond–in blog comments, or on online forums, or in chat groups–need to make sure we come down hard on assholes who use those opportunities to hassle, harass, or threaten people (including us). For god’s sake, don’t make excuses for them by pretending that they’re some kind of force of nature, like an earthquake, that we can’t do anything about. Because we can, if we shut them down when they show up.
#25 Mnemosyne
April 13, 2007

Sorry for kinda siding with stupid here, but I haven’t managed to grasp what’s so special about this case, why it matters, and why it’s not just an one time occurrence.

You mean other than the fact that people who don’t like Kathy Sierra’s opinions set up a website called “Mean Kids” that was filled with posts about how stupid she is, which is where a steady stream of threats towards her began that were serious enough for her to bring them to the police?

Yes, a public figure canceling appearances because someone is stalking her, threatening to harm her and her family, and posting her personal information on the web is exactly like someone calling your employer once 10 years ago.
#26 raindogzilla
April 13, 2007

The rush to shun kos- and the purity merit badge that comes with it, is just silly. I didn’t see him singling Kathy out for her gender. In fact, all he did was point out the realities of operating in a medium where invisibility seems to embolden hateful, prejudiced cowards into opening those mouths that the real world- and a smack in the face, would normally keep shut. He was wrong to imply that the threats might be nonexistent but not wrong to see them as the empty posturings of idiots with internet access. In his words;

“Email makes it easy for stupid people to send stupid emails to public figures. If they can’t handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work. Because no “blogger code of conduct” will scare away psycho losers with access to email.”

I mean, sure, call in the police for any explicit threats but I think “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” applies here. There is simply no gender issue here at all.
#27 Chet
April 13, 2007

I didn’t see him singling Kathy out for her gender.

I don’t see why that’s necessary to conclude sexism.

There is simply no gender issue here at all.

I wonder if you’re just being deliberately obtuse. I doubt that Kathy would have had her head photoshopped into hardcore pornography, or had her address posted on the internet, or received emails about decapitating her and raping her, if she were a man.

It’s always been the response of patriarchy to dismiss the concerns of women as “overreactions,” or as “their own fault.” That’s why what Kos did was sexist – it’s just more of the “oh, women – if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen! And then get back into the kitchen and make me a damn sandwich.”
#28 CalGeorge
April 13, 2007

Sorry for kinda siding with stupid here, but I haven’t managed to grasp what’s so special about this case…

Why does it have to be a special case!!?

It’s people doing really lousy things and we should never just accept such behavior as par for the course. It’s terrible!

Desensitization is not the answer. Don’t become like them.
#29 grendelkhan
April 13, 2007

Grand Moff Texan: The “Mean Kids” engaged in a campaign of terror to get Kathy Sierra to Know Her Damn Place. They get away with this because, on the one hand, overprivileged guys like Kos can wave it away with admonitions to get a thicker skin, and since most death threats aren’t serious, she should just grow a pair and shut up about it. On the other hand, the point of the threats is to instill fear into women, and I assure you that Kathy Sierra knew that. Here’s some further reading on instilling fear in women, if you’re interested.

Dennis: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Too bad Kos couldn’t squeeze out an apology if you paid him.
#30 Chet
April 13, 2007

They’re the kind of angry scribblings of small people, 99 out of 100 times without the means or will to carry out the act.

Perhaps, but if she received (say) 200 such threats, isn’t she justified in having reasonable concerns for her safety? By your logic aren’t there at least 2 people, now, with the means and the will to do her serious bodily harm?

People who have just been armed with her home address, by the way.

No, of course not. It’s just so much easier to dismiss the concerns of a woman as “overreacting.” I mean it’s not like anybody ever hunted down a stranger on the internet to rape and murder them, right? Oh, wait. And, of course, I’m sure that if that happened (God forbid), people like Kos would line up to make sure Kathy Sierra got the lion’s share of blame for not taking the threats sufficiently seriously.

I guess there really is nothing that could happen to a woman that’s so bad people won’t find a way to blame her for it.
#31 Carlie
April 13, 2007

There is simply no gender issue here at all.

It’s a huge gender issue, because it’s being reported that female bloggers get between 6 and 25 times the number of death/rape/mutilation threats that male bloggers do. Not to mention that violence against women, particularly rape, is societally much more common and treated more as business as usual.
#32 stogoe
April 13, 2007

All the idiots here crying about this as a ‘purity test’ need to get a fucking clue. This isn’t about shutting him down because he doesn’t toe the line; this is about pointed and deserved criticism (and if you don’t think “Crazy Bitches wouldn’t get non-existent death threats if they’d shut their smart mouths” is worth criticizing, well, you’re beyond help). It’s okay to disagree with the heavyweights, guys.

Sticking up for Markos seems to be the more idolatrous position here, buckos.

I like DailyKos much better now that it’s a group blog, though. Regardless of how much of a sexist tool Markos can be, DailyKos has grown far beyond its creator.
#33 garth
April 13, 2007

It seems like a sad situation for Ms. Sierra… anyone can end up on the bad end of a psycho. It sucks that the situation exists in the first place.
Markos should have kept his damn mouth shut if he couldn’t say something supportive of a person’s suffering at the hands of a campaign of abuse. I’ve read all the comments I can, and while I don’t hear the tone of sexism (without claiming it doesn’t exist), I do hear someone telling a victim it’s their fault. And that’s not acceptable. I hope we hear an apology.
Do we have any info about police action on this case? It seems to have crossed the line significantly into activities that the law should step in and stop.
#34 Chris Bell
April 13, 2007

The pictures have been taken down, and it’s really hard to evaluate the “threats” without seeing them.

Does anyone have a link? I couldn’t find them anywhere.
#35 AJ Milne
April 13, 2007

Wow. Death/rape threats over… Java and software design philosophy?

That’s… just… umm…

Okay. I don’t even know what the hell that is.

I mean, apart from one incredible reinforcement to the notion that there are a lotta seriously screwy guys in high tech*.

Here’s hoping someone the end of this is someone getting a little time in jail to think about how they might have handled their disagreement more civilly.

(*I’m in high tech. I believe this gives me license to say this.)
#36 Chet
April 13, 2007

Okay. I don’t even know what the hell that is.

Patriarchy is what that is. It’s the violent reaction of a certain type of man to a woman achieving status in a field they think of as “theirs.” Hence, the use of threats to intimidate the woman into withdrawing from participation.

As she did. (I’m not saying she was wrong to do so – that’s her decision – but these animals left her precious little choice.)
#37 Mooser
April 13, 2007

“Tell me: Where did an old white guy like Imus learn the word “ho”?

I also heard the word “ho”. It took me a long time time finally decipher that particular bit of vernacular, but when I did I said to myself: “I really don’t see this word becoming a part of my vacabulary” It was that simple.
#38 Hairhead
April 13, 2007

Ted Rall, who writes far more inflammatory things than Kathy Sierra has received many death threats. His response has always been prompt and unequivocal: he posts the threat, the email, and the name and address of the person making the threat (as much as he can investigate himself), reports the incident to the local police, and then informs all readers that that is what he will EVERY TIME.

Now I’m not blaming Sierra here. She is terrorized, she feels fear and she’s publicized that. But she (and we) also have to publicize the names and contacts of all of those cowardly psycho fucks who made the threats. If you really want to support Kathy Sierra, start using your search engines and your tech knowledge, track these fuckers down and PUBLICICZE THEM.

The point is, you shouldn’t be talking about Sierra, you should be talking about her harassers, using names, domains, websites, emails, and other contact information so that these trash-talking scum get overwhelmed by messages from the Sierra-supporting blogosphere that their words and actions are unacceptable, that they are being observed, that they are being noted, and will be held legally responsible what they say and do.

Don’t sit there moaning and stabbing each other in the front Kos may be a sexist jerk in some ways, but he is an important and valuable member of the liberal-opposed-to-the-current-psycho-fuck-admiinistration team, and pillorying him for a dismissive and unhelpful response to the Sierra situation while not giving the harrassers the same amount of pointed criticism (in that you point readers to where and how these harrassers can be faced down) doesn’t help Kathy Sierra OR address the larger issue.

Get your priorities straight.
#39 speedwell
April 13, 2007

Thanks, everyone, for clearing the Kathy Sierra thing up for me. At first I couldn’t understand why she was singled out for attention and why everyone was making a brouhaha out of it… I mean, even I get over-the-top intimidation threats from people who don’t appreciate my outspoken atheism in chat… but it is clear from your posts that it was more than “trash talking” and crossed the line into serious invasion and harassment.
#40 Dorid
April 13, 2007

This whole line, and a great deal of the comments here, make me sick. One of the problems is that it seems to me that a great number of people here are treating Ms. Sierra like some sort of stereotypical hysterical female who can’t take the heat she’s generated. It’s NOT like that, and to look at it like that is just plain sexist.

One of the things people seem to assume is that this is all just talk… you know, like the kind of talk Dr Slepian got, no doubt, just before he was gunned down by a right wing religious nut job sniper. The fact is that there ARE loonies out there, and they CAN and DO on occasion take action.

The other thing that disgusts me is that we’re willing to hang others for idiocy (like Ismus) but people are standing by Kos. Kos needs to get his head on straight before he DESERVES any support.

As far as tying this all to a bloggers code of ethics, we can all trivialize lower read blogs and point to the Kathy Sierra thing as a unique case, but it isn’t. There ARE little blogs where people get hurt (physically, emotionally, financially) over words… I personally know of two situations (one that eventually involved an order of protection) relating to blogs.

I don’t see how a code of ethics can be enforced, but I do think that harassment and stalking via the internet should be a federal offence, and that death threats should be treated as felonies. Not enough is done and not enough seriousness is taken in these cases… cases where it’s more than a case of words, but where there is a real threat to a blogger.

Finally, I have a great deal of sympathy for Ms Sierra, although no one has threatened to slit my throat and rape my corpse, I did have a stalker on Yahoo!360 while I was listed on interesting pages who continuously made remarks about my young daughters, and repeatedly and rather publicly asked where he could find them. From experience, I know that Yahoo! and other blog hosts don’t do a heck of a lot about that, and police don’t bother to look into things that don’t have an immediate and obviously identifiable source. Things have to become quite serious (and quite risky) before people take action.

PZ, I’m disappointed (for what it’s worth) that you would disagree but still support Kos.
#41 Brian
April 13, 2007

I think the reason all of this elicits so much reaction is because the whole overhyped o’reilly “blogger code of conduct” push is idiotic in the extreme. It saps me of any patience for the rest of the topic.
#42 Scholar
April 13, 2007

I am willing to bet it was just some misguided teenager. But on the other hand, that’s pretty sick and certainly crosses the line of what should be legal (in my mind). I can’t tell if Kos is wrong or right here, but one thing is clear to me, shutting down the blog was not the right choice. This is a good case for maintaining anonymity or requiring log-in to post.
#43 G
April 13, 2007

I haven’t read DailyKos for a long time because the recurring sexism. It isn’t just the matter of direct sexism from Markos himself – of which this incident is hardly the first – but also that hateful, bilious sexism is always permitted and NEVER criticized or shut down in any way in the comments threads (even though other kinds of comments have been treated as out of line and beyond the pale). If someone takes any sort of stand against trolling in general, but completely ignores sexist trolling in particular… Do you think perhaps that might be an indication of something? Just perhaps?
#44 Paul D.
April 13, 2007

What bugs me the most is Kos’ suggestion that Kathy Sierra didn’t even really get death threats

Sorry Dr. Free-Ride. He suggested nothing of the kind. Read it again. He was making the perfectly valid point that many people get kinda “chicken little” and think they’ve received a death threat when they really haven’t. Kos was talking about how you pretty much have to expect to receive nutty emails when you’re a prominent Internet personality.
#45 James M
April 13, 2007

Gender question aside. (Only momentarily, though.)

Kos essentially said: Toughen up or get out. ‘Get out’ is not a progressive value.

From this point of view, if you’re not tough, you’re weak.

Contempt for the weak is a well-established authoritarian value.

Who do the authoritarians come for first? The groups they’ve worked out on throughout history. Women always near the top of the list.

When a progressive sees this ancient power relationship taking shape, it’s not hard to choose a side. And if it is hard, keep quiet and try to learn.

Treating threats as categorically imaginary sounds like someone failing as a middle-school guidance counselor.

He also falls into the fallacy that blogging is inherently political, and whatever you do someone will hate you. Yet the topic at hand is UI design. Not everything is ‘to the barricades!’

I think Kos is a fine election geek, but he is not up to the job of Dean of the Blogosphere.
#46 Chet
April 13, 2007

He was making the perfectly valid point that many people get kinda “chicken little” and think they’ve received a death threat when they really haven’t.

…in the specific context of Kathy Sierra. Explain to me precisely how that’s not a clear implication that she “made the whole thing up”, or that she’s “taking it too seriously”, or both. Naive, much?

Kos was talking about how you pretty much have to expect to receive nutty emails when you’re a prominent Internet personality.

Why?
#47 Jeff Fecke
April 13, 2007

Kos may be a sexist jerk in some ways, but he is an important and valuable member of the liberal-opposed-to-the-current-psycho-fuck-admiinistration team

[...]

Get your priorities straight.

Yes, because women being able to write without having their head photoshopped into a noose and people telling her they want to “cut off her head” and “cum [sic] down [your] bloody gob” is just not an important priority.

Them women, always wanting not to be at the muzzle end of a gun! Silly girls, all.

one thing is clear to me, shutting down the blog was not the right choice.

Bullshit. Look, I’d sick to death of people who haven’t been threatened saying what people who have been threatened should do. I don’t know what I’d do if someone posted the stuff about me that they did about Sierra, and neither do you. All in all, I can’t blame her for wanting to ensure her continued survival. This isn’t her fault–it’s the terrorizers’ fault.

And Kos was flat-out, 100% wrong, and he should say so. And if he can’t, then we know that whatever his worth, he’s written off over half of the Democratic party. And Democrats should bear that in mind.
#48 Paul D
April 13, 2007

Funny.

I sent this thread to my wife, an ardent feminist who reads DailyKos regularly.

She’s flabbergasted. She wonders if we’re all talking about the same site. Kos? Sexist? She thinks not.
#49 Trinifar
April 13, 2007

I don’t get why the blogger code of ethics could in anyway be a stupid idea (as mentioned in comment #44 for example). A voluntary way to take collective action to discourage insane and violent behavior — now tell me what’s bad about that?
#50 Paul D
April 13, 2007

@Chet

Because, as PZ can attest, there’s nuts everywhere!
#51 Paul D
April 13, 2007

@Jeff Fecke

Look, I’d sick to death of people who haven’t been threatened saying what people who have been threatened should do.

Markos Moulitsas is arguably the most experienced progressive blogger out there. He HAS been threatened, many times, with far more vile and violent retribution from nuts of all stripes.

I personally think he’s earned the right to give out a little advice and try to help a fellow blogger once in a while. It is entirely up to Ms. Sierra whether to take that advice or not.

Furthermore, just as my own personal opinion, the Democrats that have been “written off” by Kos are pretty much just spineless, Republican-Lite losers who wouldn’t know a progressive value if it bit them on the ass.

Meh.
#52 Melanie
April 13, 2007

Paul,

Your wife is just plain wrong and I have personally been on the receiving side of Kos sexism.

I’ve also received death threats and sexual harrassment on the job for most of my life. Yeah, I pretty much so take it seriously when someone calls me on the phone, knows my address and tells me he’s going to bring his dobermans over to tear me apart.
#53 David Wilford
April 13, 2007

I don’t get why the blogger code of ethics could in anyway be a stupid idea (as mentioned in comment #44 for example). A voluntary way to take collective action to discourage insane and violent behavior — now tell me what’s bad about that?

There’s nothing stopping you or anyone else from taking action right now and collectively discouraging threatening behavior. In fact, I think this discussion is part of exactly that.

The problem with a “blogger code of ethics” is that you’re going to empower a chosen few to make decisions about the sort of speech the rest of us are told will be acceptable. Profanity would be one of the first things to go, followed by an edict forbidding anyone from taking the Lord’s name in vain. That’s a far more dangerous thing than the danger of some making violent threats online, which is something the law already covers anyway.
#54 Robert
April 13, 2007

Paul: how is blaming the victim for not being tough enough to just ignore good advice, or any kind of help?

Dismissing her threats as irrelevant, or something you should just put up with in no way helps anyone, or improves the discussion of anything. People say hurtful and hateful things (more so on the internet), but that means that those of us who would work towards equality and basic respect for people as people need to stand against this kind of thing, not wave it away as inevitable.

And just because Kos has arguably been through worse in no way empowers him to decide that other people need to just suffer through their threats.

Sure, sometimes the best course of action is to ignore them, but when they go to far (as the easily have in this case) then they need to be called out and we need to stand against them.
#55 CalGeorge
April 13, 2007

Yup, Kos is insensitive to the issues. Here he is in June 2005, complaining about complaints about an ad that is demeaning to women. It’s just not important to him.

Seems to me he’s got more than a little bit of Mike S. Adams in him:

So over the weekend, certain segments of the community have erupted in anger over the TBS ad for their reality show, the Real Gilligan’s Island. Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.

Whatever. Feel free to be offended. I find such humorless, knee-jerk reactions, to be tedious at best, sanctimonious and arrogant at worst. I don’t care for such sanctimony from Joe Lieberman, I don’t care for it from anyone else. Some people find such content offensive. Some people find it arousing. Some people find it funny. To each his or her own.

But I am not Lieberman. I won’t sit there and judge pop culture and act as gatekeeper to what I think is “appropriate”, and what isn’t.

And I certainly won’t let the sanctimonious women’s studies set play that role on this site. Feel free to be offended. Feel free to claim that I’m somehow abandoning “progressive principles” by running the ad. It’s a free country. Feel free to storm off in a huff. Other deserving bloggers could use the patronage.

Me, I’ll focus on the important shit.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2005/06/06/kos-gets-real/
#56 Jeff Fecke
April 13, 2007

I personally think he’s earned the right to give out a little advice and try to help a fellow blogger once in a while. It is entirely up to Ms. Sierra whether to take that advice or not.

This is advice:

Dear Kathy, how are you? I heard about your problem with sick bastards threatening you, and I wanted to share some advice from things I’ve gone through. Email me back if you’d like to talk. Sincerely, Markos

This is not:

I don’t know anything about this Kathy Sierra, but she got some death threats. Now, a lot of bloggers don’t really get the death threats they say they get. I think she should just man up and keep blogging.

Do you see the difference?
#57 llewelly
April 13, 2007

Based on his past behavior, I will make two forecasts:
(a) Markos will not apologize.
(b) Markos will continue to do this sort of thing until people like PZ are driven away from supporting him.
I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
#58 syvanen
April 13, 2007

Kos is insensitive but his point is valid. I have had one anonimous death threat and it was definitely disconcerting. But what can one do about it? Prosecute? But who can investigate that stuff? Bottom line is if you can’t take the heat, then stay out of the kitchen.
#59 Blake Stacey
April 13, 2007

David Wilford wrote:

The problem with a “blogger code of ethics” is that you’re going to empower a chosen few to make decisions about the sort of speech the rest of us are told will be acceptable. Profanity would be one of the first things to go, followed by an edict forbidding anyone from taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Fuck that.
#60 Monado
April 13, 2007

I did not hear about this before the fuss about Kathy Sierra cancelling speaking engagements, but I did see some of the (real) pictures. I agree that we can’t sit back on our fat asses and tell someone else that they should ignore death threats or inciters to hatred who post the home address of their intended victim. And “you’d bet it’s an empty threat”–but would you bet your life?

This came at a particularly disturbing time considering that in February that the Minister for Social Welfare in Punjab was murdered at a public speaking engagement… For not appearing veiled head to foot. Details here and here. It might not cross your mind, but I suspect it crossed Ms. Sierra’s. And if you think it can’t happen here, remember the evil idiots who think that killing the receptionist at an abortion clinic is a praiseworthy act.

I would definitely vote for publishing as much information as possible about the identity and whereabouts of those who threatened.
#61 Colugo
April 13, 2007

The threats against Kathy Sierra were so heinous that there was a convergence of views on the matter between Michelle Malkin and Majikthise.

This is the left wing version of Kos’ 2004 “screw them” remark about the American contractors killed in Fallujah, which mobilized the conservative blogosphere. But now he’s angered his own base.

Kos thinks he’s a guru and kingmaker, scolding politicians with the stature of Barack Obama via his electronic pulpit. This time, his arrogance has bitten him on the ass.
#62 Carlie
April 13, 2007

Furthermore, just as my own personal opinion, the Democrats that have been “written off” by Kos are pretty much just spineless, Republican-Lite losers who wouldn’t know a progressive value if it bit them on the ass.

I may have misinterpreted, but I think Jeff meant the half of the Democrats that are women. Hopefully that’s not what you also meant.
#63 Observer
April 13, 2007

Llewelly, apparently in CalGeorge’s example #59 he did apologize for going too far regarding the online ad discussed. I too am very against censorship, but it was his approach that turned people off. As a blogger said:

“Nonetheless, I didn’t feel the urge to boycott or take it down or anything, because I jsut am more uneasy about stripping down offensive images rather than examining them. Kos didn’t want to do either and I’m irritated.”

Like the issue about the patron at the autoshop, I resent someone telling me that I’m being an athiest sheep because I choose not to make a big deal over a Christian radio station, mainly because I’ve been fighting and clawing my way about atheism nearly my whole life, often at a cost; the person approached it all wrong. The same attitude goes for Markos’s approach to liberals – it’s groupthink no matter how you slice it. He sounds like what he despises – if you don’t agree with ME, you are the same as Dobson, you are not progressive or liberal enough, and dismiss others’ complaints about the ad being on the site. He didn’t have to agree, but they deserved a better explanation as his fellow liberals than what he doled out to them.

That’s why I’m not registered with a party. Ugh.
#64 Chet
April 13, 2007

Because, as PZ can attest, there’s nuts everywhere!

And so the proper response is to normalize violence against women?

I still don’t understand, I guess.
#65 Chet
April 13, 2007

Bottom line is if you can’t take the heat, then stay out of the kitchen.

And then get back in it and make him his sandwich. A man is waiting here, dammit!
#66 Observer
April 13, 2007

Kos is insensitive but his point is valid. I have had one anonimous death threat and it was definitely disconcerting. But what can one do about it? Prosecute? But who can investigate that stuff? Bottom line is if you can’t take the heat, then stay out of the kitchen.

Posted by: syvanen | April 13, 2007 02:27 PM

Our tax dollars go to the FBI, that is what they’re for. Death threats coupled with nasty pictures and address posting are serious enough to warrant investigation. If you can’t take the heat? I dunno…my father’s profession gets death threats all the time and they’re investigated or else people would be difficult to hire. I’d take the Ted Rall route and then hire some 15-year old hackers to do all sorts of nasty stuff to the perpetrator.
#67 Observer
April 13, 2007

I better add: Not nasty as in violent. I was joking…sort of.
#68 Jeff Fecke
April 13, 2007

I think Jeff meant the half of the Democrats that are women.

Correct. I assume he misinterpereted; certainly I don’t think it’s the “spineless, Republican-lite losers” who are up in arms about this. Well, not unless Amanda Marcotte’s changed parties while I wasn’t looking.
#69 bernarda
April 13, 2007

the comment above, “American contractors”. You mean “mercenaries”. They are the second biggest army in Iraq. I too say “screw them”.
#70 Leon
April 13, 2007

Right on, PZ!
#71 ahren
April 13, 2007

Its the internet. I think I would take death threats as a compliment. It means you’re making people who are so (set-in-their-beliefs that they are willing to risk legal involvement) uncomfortable. That seems possibly correlated to having a moving argument. I love PZ for not taking shit, (but he admittedly gets threats all the time) we can imagine from whom….and I certainly know why, because he meticulously and beautifully supports his arguments.

“There is the problem, the eliminationist assholes who thrive under the encouragement of AM talk radio,” – you can’t censor the internets, but you can control your own blogs and topics and eliminate their mindless (violence and misogyny) from any portion of our mindshare(s) and removing their 12yr-old sense of accomplishment by “getting to you”(which is what they were trying to do in the first place)

Everyone’s wants to shout on high and “unite against it,” but i dont see that actually stopping email threats anytime soon….only inciting them. (and dont even start about increased internet “supervision/tracking/biometrics” (under any administration))
#72 Monado
April 13, 2007

I have SiteMeter, which is free, and it tells me where viewers come from, linkwise, via search, and so on, and where they are including their Internet provider or IP address. All the monitoring you want is already available because it serves the owners of commercial Web sites who want to know where their customers are.

If it can display the current and recent users for me like that, I imagine it could cough up greater detail for an investigation into threats. So you don’t have to get all paranoid about letting someone monitor you. They’re already doing it.
#73 tikistitch
April 13, 2007

I like Kos, and this is not going to stop me from liking Kos, but I don’t consider it some kind of “purity test” to call the guy on his bullsh*t. We’re liberals, we think, therefore, we disagree sometimes.

As for the Intarnets, I’m a toy collector, and over the years, I’ve gotten plenty of absolutely horrible emails and comments, all for posting my opinions regarding action figures and Barbie dolls. Wish there was some way to fix it, but you might be asking too much of human nature.
#74 clvrmnky
April 13, 2007

I’m a little suprised at the position some folks have elected to take on this whole story, Kos included.

The fact is that the nature and tenor of /the specific messages we are discussing here/ were not just random nastiness, but were targeted and highly organized, specific death threats.

Let’s try to keep our eye on the prize here: local law enforcement are not just investigating these threats, but were /compelled by law/ to follow-up on them because they passed some level of specificity to be considered contrary to the law. The law is that thing that protects people from arbitrary harm, or threat of harm, visited upon them by other people.

Yes, you have to grow a thick skin in today’s modern world, and it feels sometimes that the stupid and ignorant poison everything they touch. However there is a world of different between someone calling you names on a message board or swearing at you in an email and someone publishing /accurate/ personal information on you (so you know they can probably find you, and have invested enough of their own time hunting down these details) and describing in graphic detail exactly how they are going to kill you and then defile your dead body — complete with graphical aids in case you didn’t get it.

The latter is expressly against the law in most localities, and no notion of “free speech” protects it. It is not the same thing /at all/ than the usual shit-flinging that the rest of us monkeys participate in on the ‘net and in real life.

Kos should know better. This is not a fine line, at all, but one that is so damn obvious I have trouble understanding how anyone could mistake one sort of behaviour for the other.

Mistakes will be made, however, and Kos is entitled to his opinion. I think it’s important to remind him that not every opinion and position is equally valid, and that sometimes wrong is just wrong. There is little wiggle-room for relativism here.
#75 Kseniya
April 13, 2007

So Sierra’s stalker is probably just a troubled young man? Like John C. Salvi? Or Dylan Klebold? Okay. Not to worry.

Carlie (#33) – right on.

Dorid (#43)

I did have a stalker on Yahoo!360 while I was listed on interesting pages who continuously made remarks about my young daughters,

A similar thing happened to an older friend of mine. She’s been cyber-stalked for several years by an obsessive, relentless sociopath who hasn’t found a line he won’t cross or a boundary he won’t violate. He is resourceful to say the least. He constantly tries to infiltrate her world. All of her friends must be vigilant. He phoned her older kids in their college dorm rooms and her elderly mother at her home. He made veiled threats to her about her mother. He collected pictures of her daughter (a lovely 15 year old who is fighting type 1 diabetes) and posted them on his website, then proceeded to send the girl messages at her MySpace account. My friend nearly went homicial at that point. She deleted her account and stayed away from our 360 blogcircle because she was afraid – afraid of what SHE might do if he tried to contact her daughter again.

There’s a lot more, but you get the idea. However you look at it, however you deal with it, it’s a bad scene. It’s frightening. Dealing with the threats of an unknown aggressor is terrifying – but that’s the point, isn’t it?

Working within the system is ineffective and slow. Yahoo banned him more than once for making explicit death threats but he keeps coming back under new IDs. He responds to counter-threats by pumping up his obsession. It’s ugly. You’d think that a guy who stalked a woman and harrassed her 15 year old daughter, across state lines, would wind up in federal prison. But no. Not yet. What does he have to do – kill someone?

The Proper Authorities have been contacted, but nothing very comforting or concrete has resulted. Disgraceful, isn’t it? I can understand why some people resort to vigilantism. I don’t condone it, but I understand the impulse.

The strange thing is, we know who this guy is and where he lives. I’ve looked down on the roof of his house in complete safety, courtesy of Google Earth. Fortunately, he lives many hundreds of miles away from my friend.

But I could be on his doorstep in 45 minutes.

And he has no idea who I am.

I have my own photoshop fantasy, but it involves nothing more lurid than a snapshot of creepystalker and some text listing his name and address and describing his various crimes. Oh, and a copier. And a ream of paper. And pushpins and masking tape. And a few hours of my time posting these things all over his hometown.

But I am afraid. Afraid for myself? Yes, though not terribly. I am more afraid of how his reaction will impact my friend… and her family. Sick, isn’t it? This one guy embodies the reason I maintain some degree of anonymity online. On 360, on Pharyngula – anywhere. Because you just never know who’s listening in from the shadows.

Anyway, I tried to address this on a somewhat rational and conceptual level in my earlier post (#28), but Dorid’s personal note has inspired me to add a postscript: Anyone who hasn’t experienced this kind of terror first-hand should think very long and very hard before criticizing someone who has chosen to retreat from it. There. I said it without using the words “fuck” or “off.” I’m such a good girl.
#76 sqeekyskweel
April 13, 2007

Sierra engineered the whole ‘scandal’, and it is proving to be really really great for her hit counter.
Most people miss the fact that she accused multiple males of multiple false things, slandering them, and gaining great PR for her site, and still no one is blogging about the innocence of those men, just like no one is blogging about the innocence of the men accused of rape at Duke.
I might add that those men all faced charges of imprisonment for 30+ years. That is a REAL injustice, not an imagined one, or a possible one.
Evidently no one noticed the male bashing that Sierra has posted as well.
Hmmm…so that’s how we get our site more popular?
#77 Chris
April 13, 2007

get a thicker skin, and since most death threats aren’t serious, she should just grow a pair and shut up about it.

people like Kos would line up to make sure Kathy Sierra got the lion’s share of blame for not taking the threats sufficiently seriously.

“Crazy Bitches wouldn’t get non-existent death threats if they’d shut their smart mouths”

I do hear someone telling a victim it’s their fault.

Here’s a radical idea for the blogger code of ethics: when arguing with someone, argue with what they actually said, and not some shit you make up and put their name on. Yes, I know that tactic has worked real well for Rove and Fox News, but try to resist the temptation to turn Kos into a strawman for more convenient flaming.

This will involve reading Kos’s actual post, not reactions to reactions to reactions to it. (If you see the words “blame”, “fault”, “shut up” or “crazy bitches”, you are not reading Kos’s actual post.) Once it gets filtered through several other people’s heads it looks very different than the original.

Here’s an example of something Kos actually did say in that post:

For better or for worse, this isn’t a country in which media figures — even hugely controversial ones — are routinely attacked by anything more dangerous than a cream pie.

Anyone want to argue that that is not true?

AFAIK, no one has carried out the threats or attempted to do so. Anyone surprised? Genuinely?

Overall I see the tone of Kos’s post as “don’t let the assholes get to you”. I don’t see why this is perceived as hostile to, let alone blaming, the victim. And there is not a single word in his post to even suggest that he would have reacted differently to the same threats made against a man (or himself, for that matter). The assholes who made the threats were misogynistic, but there’s no reason to transfer that to Kos.
#78 raindogzilla
April 13, 2007

This is about the most ridiculous topic of discussion that I’ve ever heard- right up there with the Ann Althouse tirade against a tight sweater.

Kos never, in any shape or form, said anything that could be construed as condoning the behavior towards Sierra or “normalizing” the aberrant, juvenile, sociopathic behavior of those that harassed and threatened her. He merely stated what HE would do- and has done, in a similar situation, period, and, along with a disclaimer that he hadn’t seen the actual threats/photos, that some- not male, not female, some, have been known to read too much into the rantings of an internet psycho.

Perhaps, he should have waited to comment until he had seen the material in question but he was just stating an opinion on a subject he happens to know a lot about…
#79 Monado
April 13, 2007

Why not hit creepystalker with similar, but invented, slimniness (hanging around elementary schools, exhibitionism) that’s enough to make people aware of him but that doesn’t remind him of the object of his threats. And who knows? Maybe there’s more than one victim.
#80 Kenneth Mareld
April 13, 2007

Death threats are terror. When directed to an individual, the fear and paralysis are overwhelming. Your gut feels totally empty and you can’t think. Your world closes in so deeply that wrapping yourself in a thick blanket is the only solace you can find, and there is no relief. You want a cocoon for safety, but you know bullets and knives cut through it. Fear is real.
You also learn that death threats, while real usually don’t happen. It usually comes from an authoritarian asshole trying to carry out an agenda that he is to cowardly to enact.
I have been threatened several times, explicitly. The first three times were based on my Union activities. When I was seventeen Teamster goons threatened me at my workplace (they were trying to organize Los Angeles car dealerships), twice! I did a volunteer food drive for United Farm Workers. I was eighteen when a bunch of us were sleeping in a Community Center during a food drive, it was shot up at 3:00 AM. At one point I lived across the street from an ‘exotic car’ lot. I complained about the noise one late night at 2:00 AM and had a Mac pistol stuck in my nose. That was the scariest. The place was a mob front operation. Police did nothing!
I spent three decades working automotive. The occasional threats from upset customers were almost laughable after those prior experiences.
When I started to work medical, my first job was in a psych unit. Sometimes the mentally ill, when they have no other means of effective expression use death threats. I gauge the seriousness of the threat and respond appropriately.
If a blogger is threatened for her words any threat is serious. If the threat is accompanied by evidence of stalking (addresses, social security numbers, family threat) then police must become involved and safety measures MUST be taken. No one can really hide on the net if the police are motivated to look hard enough. Like money, electrons always leave a trail. I hope Kathy can find a place to feel safe while lighting a fire under the authorities’ asses to get this handled.

Ken
#81 Jeff Fecke
April 13, 2007

Dear all trolls, everywhere:

The moment you type “Duke rape case,” I know you’re whacked out of your mind. You brandish the one time in the last twenty-five years that rich white boys were charged wrongly like it proves a goddamn thing.

And if you think Kathy Sierra accusing someone of “multiple false things” (a claim which I accept only arguendo) is justification for people to threaten her with death and post her social security number online, you’re a sick bastard who should really just scurry back under the rock you came from.

Incidentally, I’d be more impressed with the argument that this was good for her hit counter if she was, you know, still posting.

Sweet Chocolate Jesus, the trolls get stupider every year.
#82 Ebonmuse
April 13, 2007

You know, I’ll be the first to say Kos’ words on this matter were ill-considered and ignorant. But on the other hand, I’m also annoyed by purity trolls who try to flaunt their progressive credentials by bashing him with idiotic accusations. Like this one:

Markos is a sexist asshole. I’m a former front pager whom he dumped precisely because I’m female.

I have difficulty believing that anyone who says things this ridiculous expects to be taken seriously.
#83 Steve_C (Secular Elitist) FCD
April 13, 2007

Even the Rutgers Girls Basketball team is getting death threats from these kinds of whackos.
#84 Kseniya
April 13, 2007

Steve… yeah… it’s appalling.

Monado:

Why not hit creepystalker with similar, but invented, slimniness … Maybe there’s more than one victim.

Indeed. He apparently has a violent history; allegedly he beat the living daylights out of his stepson several years ago. He’s a Brit. He could be deported. We can only hope.

Your misdirection idea is a good one. I’ll think about it. But given the history – and the likelyhood that he’ll focus whatever wrath he feels not on me, but on my friend – I hesitate to do anything rash. To bring more grief down on her head as the by-product of some anonymous action I take… That’s not what I want.

And anyway, what good would it do? He stalks remotely from the safety of his bedroom. Would he care what his neighbors think about him? And wouldn’t it make me a kind of a stalker, too? There has to be a better approach. There has to be.
#85 Caledonian
April 13, 2007

You brandish the one time in the last twenty-five years that rich white boys were charged wrongly like it proves a goddamn thing.

Rich white boys are wrongly charged with stuff all the time. It’s just not usually as public as it was that time.

How many of the people who publically castigated those boys are apologizing now, hmmm?
#86 Hairhead
April 13, 2007

Again, people, GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!!!!

What I see is 1) dozens of people going off on Kos for not being sufficiently supportive of Ms. Sierra.

And 2) less than five people actually suggesting ways in which the psycho fucks who terrorized Ms. Sierra can be dissuaded.

Jesus Christ, your opponents, and in particular the crazies who threatened Ms. Sierra must be laughing their asses off at how you’re all wasting your time, energy, intelligence and resources criticizing Kos rather than going after them.

Just to make an analogy: a woman (ie. Sierra) is standing outside her burgled house, weeping in shock and fear. The burglars are standing on the other side of the street, smirking. Ms. Sierra’s next door neighbour, a Mr. Kos grunts, “This is a rough neighbourhood, get over it.” Rude and unsympathetic and unhelpful indeed. And fifty neighbours come over and yell at Mr. Kos and argue heatedly with one another, all the while ignoring the crooks standing across the street, chuckling and high-fiving each other.

What’s wrong with this picture?
#87 ponderingfool
April 13, 2007

Hairhead the sexist attitudes that Kos is feeding into the aspects of our society that breeds the types who make the type of misogynistic disgusting comments that Kathy Sierra was forced to endure. When leaders (which Kos is rightly or wrongly) they have to be called on it. The problem with going after those who wrote the comments is that we don’t know who did this. What we can do is call on one another to speak out when sexists comments are made and have our voices heard instead of turning our backs when we hear the bigotry. Turning out backs gives strength to the misogyny. Myers and others calling Kos out are sounding the call against sexist attitudes. It is part of the preventive steps necessary to prevent others from having to endure such harassments and threats.
#88 Hank Roberts
April 13, 2007

Don’t feed the trolls.
Don’t feed the violent trolls.
When they invite you to join them on the Mean Trolls website,
GOTO 1
#89 cmf
April 13, 2007

Jeffe Frecke, pull your head out of that kotex you are deriving your sustenance from and research it yourself. Men in general are accused and convicted routinely over that sort of thing. Heard of the Innocence Project? Or doesn’t your mother let you look at such filth? Now go crawl backin your troll hole( or whatever other hole it is that fills your mind with such pabulum). It happens every day somewhere, but we are not able to compile the stats due to false reporting not being on feminist priority lists.
\DUKE PROSECUTOR APOLOGIZES
Nuf said douche;-)

RE: Keneth Mareld:”I have been threatened several times, explicitly. The first three times were based on my Union activities. When I was seventeen Teamster goons threatened me at my workplace (they were trying to organize Los Angeles car dealerships), twice!”

Yeah, the difference between being on the actual front lines of war and pushing buttons from Washington is akin to this whole engineered Sierra scandal. I have my own bullet wounds I mean, congrats, you sound like an actual freedom fighter, but dude their is no comparison to front lines and Sierra. I mean, for instance, her blog post, the one where she goes offline in fear, has a minimum of 8 male bashing images completely denigrating men two posts down!

Then after she accused multiple innocent males( something that Frecke advocates) who later grovelled for her, and the internet fems who like grovelling chocolate jeezus sucking troll men( like Frecke), no one got hurt, except those men.

Hairhead: I mean, it is this man hating imagery that leads us to a civil rights revoking culture that demonizes men en masse, while holding up the hypotheticals as ‘real’
You said “Just to make an analogy: a woman (ie. Sierra) is standing outside her burgled house, weeping in shock and fear. ”
It reminds me of the miovie “M” from the 1930′s that preceded Hitlers pogroms, and what was to follow, because the propaganda posits blah=blah2, and everyone accepts the formula.
I am weeping in shock and fear that the very ‘idea’ of one woman being threatened can incarcerate 1 to 100( or more?) men on the premise of fear alone, sans actual evidence of a crime!
#90 cmf
April 13, 2007

p.s.
since when are differing opinions the opinions of ‘trolls’? You elitist wannabe bass turds, labeling people-and using such unoriginal labels to skirt the issue,or diffuse actual dissent!
You Fastshits!
I mean, if blogs were meant to be in crowd only elitist watering holes of safe, scrubbed and sanctified opinions only, what would that say about public blogging and cyberspace? Another god ol’ folks club, but this one full of rich[insert favorite neoracist category of identification] boys and girls.
No wonder it was so easy for the Bushies to close the constitution, and justice for all–because something might/could have/ sometimes does happen when people use words that don’t fall out of your personal label makers. Yikes.
#91 Jeff Fecke
April 13, 2007

*Backs away slowly, nodding politely*
#92 Graculus
April 13, 2007

cmf:

Ask your doctor to increase your doseage.
#93 Azkyroth
April 13, 2007

First, on the thread contents, I haven’t seen Kos’ comments yet but I can believe they’re rather insensitive. But I have very little patience for those who treat any male who says anything that could be construed as critical of a person who happens to be a woman as “presumed guilty until proven guilty” of “misogyny” (the usage of which in some corners reminds me obnoxiously of the overuse of “Nazi” comparisons that led to Godwin’s law). I hope certain of you, and Chet in particular, will post links to your posts castigating liberals for attacking Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin for not knowing their places–after all, they’re female, so any male who criticizes them must be a misogynist (or, if we’re feeling generous, is merely under the burden of proving that he isn’t). People with this sort of attitude are to the equal rights movement what PETA and their ilk are to animal welfare–a walking strawman that scumbags like Rush, Dobson, and the people who posted these threats can simply point to and tell a seven word lie–”these people are typical of the movement”–that potentially does more to discredit it in the popular eye than pages of ungrounded invention. And please, for once, don’t do that “circle the wagons” thing you’re always so quick to criticize Creationists for.

With that said, I definitely second exposing these people as a way of fighting back. I know there’s a lot of information that can be gained about people who threaten (or confess to) violence online, much more than these scumbags probably realize, and the overwhelming majority of them are likely to wet down their legs when the stalking and harassment they believed they could commit with impunity comes back to haunt them. I’m thinking a few very high-profile cases of publicizing information on these people (forwarding their emails and comments to their present or future employers and/or close family members sounds like a particularly powerful route) and making their crimes an albatross around their necks would go a long way towards discouraging others of their ilk. An organized effort in the blogosphere and cyberspace in general to ensure this happens would be worthwhile, so long as we recognized the potential of our efforts to be abused (to slime someone innocent, etc.) and avoided a “shoot first and avoid follow-up questions later” policy.

For people sending these comments from public computers, IP addresses where unsecured computers are available, and whose administrators do not make reasonable efforts to prevent their misuse, are easy enough to block; most major IRC networks do this with unsecured proxy servers as a matter of course….though it would be worth thinking long and hard about whether the cost in viewer access is worth the benefit in denying access to the maliciously anonymous.
#94 cmf
April 13, 2007

Graculus: I will presume you said that in the spirit of fun? In any case, I think I found your Nurse Ratchet Fan Klub Kard. It was in her locker, underneath your testicles.

Azkyroth:
“I have very little patience for those who treat any male who says anything that could be construed as critical of a person who happens to be a woman as “presumed guilty until proven guilty” of “misogyny” ”

Me either. And I have less patience for people who are quick to label dissenting opinions as”threat level”
#95 Graculus
April 13, 2007

Me either. And I have less patience for people who are quick to label dissenting opinions as”threat level”

So you think that having your personal info posted along with graphic violent and sexual threats is a normal part of social interaction.

Perhaps you should have a chat with your mother. Next time she brings your cheet-ohs downstairs for you.
#96 Jeff Fecke
April 14, 2007

I have very little patience for those who treat any male who says anything that could be construed as critical of a person who happens to be a woman as “presumed guilty until proven guilty” of “misogyny” (the usage of which in some corners reminds me obnoxiously of the overuse of “Nazi” comparisons that led to Godwin’s law).

Well…yeah, except let’s unpack this, slowly for the thinking impaired:

1. Kathy Sierra is a female blogger who blogs about user interfaces.

2. She is attacked in sick and vile terms by people who threaten to kill and rape her. Note–kill and rape her.

3. The police determine this is a credible threat, and she quits blogging.

4. Markos writes a post that suggests that many people make up death threats, and Kathy Sierra needs to man up and keep postin’.

And you see no room for misogyny there?

Note: that doesn’t mean Markos is a misogynist, just that there were misogynistic undertones to what he was saying–which was, in short, toughen up girlies. We men don’t worry about such things.
#97 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

CMF: I haven’t been particularly impressed with your comments either, and if you’re actually claiming that what are being responded to are “dissenting opinions” I think refuting or denouncing you would be superfluous.

Graculus: This line of attack is like criticizing Ann Coulter’s looks instead of her policy positions.
#98 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

1. Kathy Sierra is a female blogger who blogs about user interfaces.

I’m aware of that.

2. She is attacked in sick and vile terms by people who threaten to kill and rape her. Note–kill and rape her.

And this is actually misogynistic. I would also be disinclined to categorize it under “[saying] anything that could be construed as critical of a person who happens to be a woman.” I also emphatically disapprove of it, as terms like “scumbags” and “their ilk” and suggestions for how to combat it might suggest. I also think you most likely knew that perfectly well before seemingly accusing me of the opposite, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

3. The police determine this is a credible threat, and she quits blogging.

The police’s response was appropriate, I disagree with hers on both principle and pragmatic grounds but remember the Chris Clarke affair and won’t push that point.

4. Markos writes a post that suggests that many people make up death threats, and Kathy Sierra needs to man up and keep postin’.

“Man up” was a very unfortunate word choice, if that’s what he actually said. And I would label his comments insensitive, but I don’t see any justification for the “get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” tripe that’s being shoved in his mouth over here, and in the mouths of anyone who takes issue with the first round of mouth-shoving. To their credit certain elements of this comment thread have yet to put the words “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” in his mouth, but extrapolating from current trends, it’s only a matter of time.

Perhaps this will make my position more sensible: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Kos’ comments, from what I’ve seen, can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Seriously, go back and read some of the posts; Chet’s name sticks in my mind but there were others. Vicious accusations, playing fast and loose with facts, blazing strawmen, and in some cases a tone I would label catty if that wouldn’t invite more accusations of misogyny. As regards those comments, are my criticisms unjustified?
#99 Chet
April 14, 2007

I hope certain of you, and Chet in particular, will post links to your posts castigating liberals for attacking Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin

Azk, maybe you could post your links of male tech bloggers being told by someone that they want to cut their head off and fuck the stump. Pages and pages of it happening, in fact, if you want to prove that there’s no mysogyny at work here.

No? Then maybe it’s time for you to accept that the treatment of women who take a public role – in literally any capacity, as the hate mail pouring in to the Rutgers team proves – by men is qualitatively different than the treatment of public men by men.

And it’s also time for you to go fuck yourself. We’re not talking about people who just disagreed with Kathy Sierra. We’re talking about people who leveled disgusting, credible threats of violence against her – just because she’s a woman. And when people did the same thing to Ann Coulter on even this blog – use her sex as a reason to impeach her arguments and as the basis for sexist taunts – I called them on it.

So kindly cram it up your ass, ok?
#100 Chet
April 14, 2007

I don’t see any justification for the “get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich” tripe that’s being shoved in his mouth over here

I thought I had made it abundantly clear the first time. Men say “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” to women when what they really mean is “that’s what you get for taking any role in society but a submissive role to men.”

I just thought the juxtaposition of telling a woman to get out of the kitchen was funny and appropriate, when it’s the kitchen that those men want women not to have left in the first place.

I guess if you’re not aware that the universal response to a woman experiencing sexism is for someone to tell her that she’s imagining it and (paradoxically) that if she can’t take it, she should stop being so uppity, the humor might escape you.

Nothing is being put in anyone’s mouth – language loaded with sexism is being unpacked, however. If you’re blind to sexism as a function of male privilege, it’s easy to see how you would mistake one for the other.
#101 brent
April 14, 2007

Hmm. Well I am with you Azk in that I do agree that there is a push here to ascribe particularly noxious and misogynistic attitudes to Kos that really isn’t expressed by his remarks. But I do think he owes an apology especially because I think his statement can very easily be read as deliberately minimizing the threat to Sierra in a way that diminishes the importance of symbolic violence against women. I don’t know if that is exactly what he was trying to say but its pretty easy to read it that way. Can that be explained by stupidity as opposed to a dismissive attitude towards women? Sure. But I would say that he needs to own up and explain it and include a real apology in his explanation. I have my doubts that he will.
#102 Jeff Fecke
April 14, 2007

Chet–

I loved the out of/back into the kitchen line. It pretty much captured it perfectly.
#103 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

In light of all this kitchen talk, consider the irony in the fact that men in the restaurant business typically get the highest-paying wait staff and food prep jobs. Waiters make more than waitresses, if only because the most expensive restaurants don’t even bother to employ waitresses at all. Somehow only men are qualified to serve food at high prices (which generate higher tips). And how many women, as opposed to men, hold the top job in the kitchens of the mid and high priced establishments? Not many, I expect.

Unpack THAT.
#104 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Shorter Chet: “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the ~~terrorists~~ rapists.”

The boilerplate is tedious. Until you pause in rattling off attacks on a caricatured archetype of “naive male sexist” to read and respond to *my actual point*, you’re only proving it.
#105 CMF
April 14, 2007

*puking loudly, gagging on fascist rhetoric*
Well..indeed, I can only say that this is a conversation that needs discussion, and I am glad it happened here;-)

Gracie: feel free to hunt me down, and post what ever you think is my personal information on the internet. This is an invitation to you, and every other sicko out ther. Then, watch how I handle it. You stupid cowardly fuck.
Have fun. AND: watch me have fun with you thereafter.;-)

Yes, my mother died over eight years ago, so thank you for adding to the multitudes who cannot seem to grasp that the erosion of civil liberties based on white womens priviledge( my own mother included) and their constant projections of fear are the primary problem in these debates, NOT actual or factual violence.You idiot. Now go choke your little grousing chicken,birdman, or just have momma soup it up for you, you stinki non intellect, but please go get your nutsack back from Ms. Ratchet; you might need it in the coming dialogues.Or: is it your mother that nibbled it away before you knew you had one? Idjit.
Askenaz: I don’t care what you think, so you are superfluous too. BUT: your coment was close to on track. It evinced the possibilitry that you are not only aware of public space, and its geographical concepts, but also inferred that you might have a secret intellect that finds the current discursive to be a non sequitur as relates to the blatant fascist hypocrisy of those who cry wolf over and over and over….sans wolf.
AND ” there is a push here to ascribe particularly noxious and misogynistic attitudes to Kos that really isn’t expressed by his remarks.”
Yes, you are on to s/th. NOW: can anyone at least adress the blatant misandry of Ms. Sierras framing of males as “untrustworthy”,” not to be trusted”, etc ( as appears on her blog two posts down from her fearful posts?)
Kseniya: I just got done speaking with Hillary, formerly of Shie– in Minneapolis MN, and she told me why she was NOT a stripper: 1) strippers LIE to make their money 2) she ONLY made 400+ per night as a waitress in a strip bar(400+ per night?:????!!!!!!!!!).
What planet are you waiting tables on? Planet Perkins/IHOP/Bakers Square/Dennies??

But the main point remains: men are indoctrinated into this whole misogynist dialogue long before, and much too late for, real disent; like Gracie. Poor thing, stuck watching birds copulate instead of anything substantive.
p.s.
“Man Up ” is a phrase that the ‘ hide behind the blue shield ‘ guyts use to describe getting caught at strip bars, watering holes full of holes, and dope deals where they claim addiction. In other words “man up” is cop speak.
tHE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND COPS IS THAT COPS COVER EACH OTHERS LEGAL INFRACTIONS, AND YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF SELLING FASCISM TO JOE BLOW.
#106 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Graculus: I owe you an apology; it sounds like you were right about the medication.
#107 Porlock Junior
April 14, 2007

OT: If it were possible to post a comment at Jeff Fecke’s blog, I’d have posted a nice little encomium on his contributions here. However, I could not get past the Security shit: although the random letter sequence is quite easy to read, the software would not accept the right answer. Twice. AND it clobbered my input in rejecting it each time, leaving me to start over again. The first is bad; the second is inexcusable; and maybe he should find different blogging software.

(Not that I’m posting critiques of software or anything. Who wants his throat cut and… ?)
#108 Carlie
April 14, 2007

Ok, boys, I’m now giving out the homework assignment. Everyone go read Chris Clarke for a concise guide on whether to stfu before commenting again.
#109 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

We’re talking about people who leveled disgusting, credible threats of violence against her – just because she’s a woman.

How might we verify this claim that she was threatened just because she’s a woman?
#110 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

CMF: So strip clubs – sorry, I mean a strip club – accurately represents the entire industry? LMAO. Wow. Your experiences on Planet Pussycat Lounge do not apply here.
#111 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

Anyway, the restaurant thing is just an aside, unimportant in this discussion. It’s just another brick in the wall.

I refer you back to #112.
#112 trrll
April 14, 2007

Unfortunately, these kinds of incidents always seem to provoke many men into a typically male fear response–posturing about how the victim is overreacting, because they wouldn’t be intimidated by a threat of that nature. As foolish as such responses sound, they are effective ways of dealing with fear, and illustrate the point that men tend to be culturally better prepared than women to deal emotionally with threats of violence. Unfortunately, such responses will inevitably be read as validation by those who engage in this form of intimidation.

And while most anonymous threats directed at people in the public eye are empty, not all of them are. Most people who make anonymous threats are harmless, but dangerous stalkers have been known to make anonymous threats and subsequently carry them out.
#113 Chet
April 14, 2007

Until you pause in rattling off attacks on a caricatured archetype of “naive male sexist” to read and respond to *my actual point*, you’re only proving it.

Did you have a point? It seems like you’re just spouting off the typical defense of male privilege that most of us rebutted in advance within the first 30 posts of this thread.

Look – if Kos is supposedly so egalitarian, why is he saying the exact same thing that patriarchy always says to women who have experienced sexism? If it’s not sexist to tell a woman that she’s making it all up, and she should either tough it out or give up – completely abrogating any responsibility her attackers might bear – then why is that what sexists always say?

How might we verify this claim that she was threatened just because she’s a woman?

The sexualized attacks prove it. People wouldn’t tell her they want to cut off her head and “cum down her gob” if they were just disagreeing with her position on UI issues, or JAVA compilers, or internet security.
#114 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Try pointing out the failures of the advice on its own merits, instead of rejecting it merely because of its association with sexism.

Sexual attacks do not demonstrate that she was attacked for being a woman. At most, they suggest that her gender has an effect on the nature of the attacks being directed at her. If you do not grasp that your argument is fallacious, further discussion with you is pointless.

What I’m perceiving in these exchanges is people using the pretext of the Sierra case to air their sociopolitical concerns, and miraculously finding ‘justification’ for those concerns wherever they look.

Particularly telling is the misuse of language. What is at issue here is not ‘male privilege’. Men not being subject to sexualized attacks has not been demonstrated here, and even if it had, that does not indicate that men are somehow granted dispensation or freedom from such attacks. What’s at issue is the oppression of women.
#115 Chet
April 14, 2007

Try pointing out the failures of the advice on its own merits, instead of rejecting it merely because of its association with sexism.

Why? Just to save Kos’s reputation? Once again we see that the male gets every advantage, every benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether or not he’s doing something sexist, but we see that people operated under no such stricture when they accused Sierra of “making it all up”, or of “slandering men”.

Kos should have known better than to tell a victim of abuse that she was making it up, because that’s what women who are abused are always told. If he didn’t know that’s what they’re always told, then he should have educated himself. The fact that he was ignorant that he was being sexist doesn’t excuse his sexism.

At most, they suggest that her gender has an effect on the nature of the attacks being directed at her.

That’s the same thing, as far as I can see. If they were simply responding to her arguments, her gender would be irrelevant.

The fact that it isn’t proves that it’s not that they’re responding to someone whose arguments they don’t like, they’re responding to someone whose gender they don’t like – at least, they don’t like in a prominent position within their field.

These attacks had absolutely nothing to do with anything Kathy Sierra was saying – and everything to do with the fact that it was a woman saying it to these men. If you’re just being deliberately obtuse then there’s no point in talking to you.

What I’m perceiving in these exchanges is people using the pretext of the Sierra case to air their sociopolitical concerns, and miraculously finding ‘justification’ for those concerns wherever they look.

Did you consider the possibility that justifications for those concerns are found in this case because those concerns are justified by this case? That we do live in a society where men react to powerful women in male-dominated fields with campaigns of barrier harassment? That the reason that it’s true “everywhere we look” is because it happens everywhere? Apparently not. It’s just so much easier to ascribe bad faith motives to the whistleblowers than to face the import of their accusations.

I guess we’re just making it up, right, Cal?

Men not being subject to sexualized attacks has not been demonstrated here, and even if it had, that does not indicate that men are somehow granted dispensation or freedom from such attacks.

Uh-huh. So, proof that men don’t get attacked in the same way and to the same extent would actually not be proof that men don’t get attacked in the same way or to the same extent.

Who’s misusing language, again, exactly?
#116 Chet
April 14, 2007

I don’t understand what you’re asking. No, I’m using “sexualized” to refer to the content of the attacks, which were violent, credible, disturbing threats of sexual violence that contained information like her home address and speaking schedule.

And that had absolutely nothing to do with any sort of controversial position she had taken on technology issues. You’d have us believe that these threats were sent at random, but that doesn’t explain why it’s almost always women who receive threats of this nature, to this extent. How can there be any doubt that these were sexist attacks? Just because you say so?
#117 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Then your arguments are just as faulty as I’d thought.

How can there be any doubt that these were sexist attacks?

Because sexism does not logically follow from the facts in evidence. (Obviously.)

A better question is: why are you treating suppositions on your part as established and self-evident facts?
#118 Chet
April 14, 2007

Because sexism does not logically follow from the facts in evidence. (Obviously.)

Not obviously. Are you employing an idiosyncratic definition of “sexism”? How would an attack motivated by a need to put a prominent woman “in her place” not constitute sexism?

Like I said you’re just being deliberately obtuse, here. If you don’t believe that these remarks were sexist then you’ve got a considerable problem on your hands explaining how “I can’t wait to cut your head off and cum down your gob” represents a reasonable rebuttal to an argument about user interface issues or JAVA programming.

Or if it’s your contention that these remarks are simply random non sequiters, then you have a problem explaining why such remarks are predominantly received by women and not by men.

Sexism is the reasonable explanation, unless you have a vested interest in discrediting charges of sexism whenever possible.
#119 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

How would an attack motivated by a need to put a prominent woman “in her place” not constitute sexism?

Again: how have you determined what the motivation of the attacks was, and how can we verify this claim?
#120 Chet
April 14, 2007

Again: how have you determined what the motivation of the attacks was, and how can we verify this claim?

Let’s start with inspections of the alternatives.

Just as soon as you provide some, that is.
#121 raindogzilla
April 14, 2007

So, Chet, if the attacks were against me, the threats involving, say, castration and the inserting of said amputation into the mouth, are those, then, sexist attacks on a male? Or are they merely psychotic threats tailored to the gender of the recipient?

Look, no one is disputing the vile nature of the Sierra threats here. No one is, in any way, condoning them. And no one is making any kind of character references for the offenders- I think we’re all agreed that they’re hateful, cowardly scumbags. The point I’m making is that the supposed misogyny a lot of you seem to have found in Kos’ remarks is just not there.

Oh, and incidentally, the phrase “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” is attributed to Harry S Truman, addressing his war contacts investigation committee, when some apparently complained about the pace at which the work occurred.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that those committee members, in 1942, were, ahem, men.
#122 Susan
April 14, 2007

James:

I think Kos is a fine election geek, but he is not up to the job of Dean of the Blogosphere.

Yes. I was not surprised to hear of his take on Sierra; I don’t read DailyKos anymore, thanks to his history of dismissing women’s concerns– there are plenty of great alternatives, most run by women, ironically enough.
#123 Colugo
April 14, 2007

“There is the problem, the eliminationist assholes who thrive under the encouragement of AM talk radio, admire the posturing bullies like Limbaugh and Coulter and Savage, and think homicidal sexual fantasies are manly.”

It’s not just the right, as others on this thread have alluded to. Malkin really does get “ping pong ball” emails. A commenter on these threads approvingly republished a “humor” piece suggesting that Coulter’s adam’s apple (“proof” that she’s a tranny – and if she were a tranny, would that be a reason to condemn her?) should be removed with a backhoe. Then there are the blackface, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom slurs applied to black Republicans on progressive blogs. The mentality is that those on the other side have relinquished inhibitions against misogyny and racism because they’re not on the side of the angels. I’m sure there are all kinds of mental gymnastics justifying this kind of sexualized and racialized rhetoric. And the double standards of those who righteously condemn cartoon depictions of a Muslim prophet but are scathing against “Christopaths” and the so-called “Jewish lobby” is beyond obvious.
#124 Chet
April 14, 2007

So, Chet, if the attacks were against me, the threats involving, say, castration and the inserting of said amputation into the mouth, are those, then, sexist attacks on a male?

Are you asking me if attacks designed to portray you as feminized (castrated, homosexual) and therefore subordinate would be sexist?

Yes, they are. Next question, please. (Oh, I’m sorry – were you under the impression that the only time a statement could be sexist was when a man was saying it to a woman?)

The point I’m making is that the supposed misogyny a lot of you seem to have found in Kos’ remarks is just not there.

I don’t recall saying “misogyny.” If I did, it was a mistake. I don’t think Kos is a misogynist. I think he carelessly responded in an unintentionally sexist way, because society inculcates a habitual, sexist response of dismissal of women who have legitimate concerns about their harassment.

That would be excusable for someone on the right, who aren’t trained to examine statements outside of privilege. For somebody held as the progressive leader of the blogosphere, it’s not. He should have known better.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that those committee members, in 1942, were, ahem, men.

Again, it’s not exactly clear to me how you could be so obtuse as to miss the obvious sexism in a comment designed to subordinate someone by portraying them as feminine. I would think that the association between kitchens and femininity would have been even stronger in the 40′s, don’t you think?
#125 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

How exactly is ‘Uncle Tom’ a slur? An insult, yes, I can see how it’s not just a criticism but an insult, but a slur?
#126 Chet
April 14, 2007

To people obsessed with hammers, everything looks like a nail.

Ah, I see. So when logic fails, poison the well. Nice.
#127 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Considering you can’t think of even a single alternative hypothesis for why sexually-charged attacks might be directed at someone, Chet, I don’t think you’re in any position to make that criticism.

A thinker’s strength flows from Reason. But beware of the dark side: speculation, assumption, unjustified assertion. The dark side of Debate are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your thinking, consume you it will.
#128 Colugo
April 14, 2007

Caledonian: “Uncle Tom’ a slur?”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.:

“1. A disparaging remark; an aspersion.”
http://www.bartleby.com/61/68/S0486800.html

Also see Wikipedia’s (I know, hardly infallible) list of ethnic slurs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
#129 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

At least in my experience, ‘slur’ has much stronger connotations than that denotation would imply. By that definition, any negative statement about a person or their position would be a slur.

‘Uncle Tom’ is ununusal in that it’s a racially-specific criticism that is only properly used by people within that racial group to describe people within that racial group. It is scathing, but not the kind of virulent that I associate with the word ‘slur’.
#130 Chet
April 14, 2007

Considering you can’t think of even a single alternative hypothesis for why sexually-charged attacks might be directed at someone, Chet, I don’t think you’re in any position to make that criticism.

Oh, you misunderstood. I can think of several. But I can’t think of a single one that’s more reasonable than sexist misogyny. And also, I’m not inclined to do your homework for you.
#131 Colugo
April 14, 2007

Caledonian: “a racially-specific criticism that is only properly used by people within that racial group to describe people within that racial group.”

Your point is well taken. Terms like “Uncle Tom,” “house n-word,” and “houseboy” have different resonances when used within the black community as a form of charged criticism and when they are used by whites to attack and demean particular blacks. In the latter case, I suspect that certain whites find it gratifying to be finally disinhibited about using racialized speech.
#132 Susan
April 14, 2007

As for homework, Jessica Valenti via today’s AlterNet:

How the web became a sexists’ paradise

But even women who don’t put their pictures or real names online are subject to virtual harassment. A recent study showed that when the gender of an online username appears female, they are 25 times more likely to experience harassment. The study, conducted by the University of Maryland, found that female user-names averaged 163 threatening and/or sexually explicit messages a day.

http://www.alternet.org/stories/50519/
#133 Chet
April 14, 2007

Nothing to do with gender, though, right Cal?
#134 Chris
April 14, 2007

“Man up” was a very unfortunate word choice, if that’s what he actually said.

It wasn’t, nor anything like it. PZ linked Kos’s post in the post way up at the top of this page, but it seems few people bothered to read it before discussing it. If you didn’t already know Ms. Sierra was a woman (or guessed it from the name or the title “Ms.”, of course) you wouldn’t have been able to tell it from Kos’s post.

But I have very little patience for those who treat any male who says anything that could be construed as critical of a person who happens to be a woman as “presumed guilty until proven guilty” of “misogyny” (the usage of which in some corners reminds me obnoxiously of the overuse of “Nazi” comparisons that led to Godwin’s law).

Very well put. Genuine misogyny is vile and harmful, but that’s no reason to fly off the handle at everything that might be remotely construed as a criticism (and you have to construe pretty hard to get any criticism out of Kos’s remarks).

While it’s not conclusive, I notice suspiciously many of the regulars here are on the “cool it with the unsupported accusations” side. Seeing several skeptics all criticizing X triggers my baloney detection kit…
#135 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Did you have a point? It seems like you’re just spouting off the typical defense of male privilege that most of us rebutted in advance within the first 30 posts of this thread.

Perhaps it would be clearer if you were to read beyond the first paragraph of my first post, and anything of my second, as the fact that after I had posted the second you responded to was based on the assumption I felt the attacks against her were acceptable or trivial indicates you didn’t.

Not obviously. Are you employing an idiosyncratic definition of “sexism”? How would an attack motivated by a need to put a prominent woman “in her place” not constitute sexism?

If you’re talking about Kos’ statements and not the threats, then it does not constitute sexism until more evidence of his motive being “a need to put a prominent woman in her place” than you simply taking it as a given. If you’re talking about the threats made against Kathy Sierra than I agree with you that they are misogynistic in tone and would appreciate it if you’d stopped pretending I don’t. Is this really so hard to understand?

Incidentally, if you’re primarily concerned with Kathy Sierra’s welfare and opposition to criminal threats of violence, rather than simply grinding an axe, why have you yet to acknowledge or respond to any of the suggestions I made in the second or third paragraphs of my first post?
#136 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

It’s all very far from the utopian ideals that greeted the dawn of the web — the idea of it as a new, egalitarian public space, where men and women from all races, and of all sexualities, could mix without prejudice.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

“I don’t think a man would get that; the harassment of women is far more sexualised — men may be told that they’re idiots, but they aren’t called ‘whores.’”

Well, no. They’re likely to be called (testing to see if this is the word), though. Sexual insults are generally less common between males – and when they occur, they’re generally denigrating others’ potency and orientation, not overloading/stressing the sexuality.

I do note that the sexual criticism discussed in that article originated from a woman. Hmmm…
#137 D
April 14, 2007

I wish someone would actually point out parts of kos’s post that were women hating. I would also like to see the part where he said she was making up the threats.
I read the whole thing. I can’t find it anywhere. I see that he said most people who make up death threats don’t follow through. I see the part where he says that celebrities are rarely attacked in the USA. I see the part where he says that people who blog need get thicker skins.
I see the whole post as being an argument against some sort of blogger code of conduct.
I truly don’t understand the argument of many people on this thread about Kos. I read Chris Clarke’s piece on Pandagon. It was OK but missed to whole point of Kos’s post that a bloggers code of conduct is a stupid idea just because someone got death threats.
I don’t see where Kos blew it “big time.” He was insensitive. If we are so concerned about the sensitivities of people, why do we read PZ? He is very insensitive to people he considers stupid.
I don’t see where Kos is hateful to women.
Everything else is a matter of opinion about how seriously to take the threat.
#138 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

That seems to be one of the words that can’t be posted here. I think you can guess what it is.

Males, or people presumed to be males, tend to have their intelligence and competence insulted on the ‘Net. If sexuality is brought up, males’ orientation and virility is challenged.

In short, insults on the Internet are generally tailored for the best fit to the specific; if there’s only a vague idea about which groups an identity is in, the insults are tailored to stereotypes of what the most probable groups are most likely to be insulted by. If specifics are known, the insults become more specialized.

This has less to do with sexism and more to do with people wanting to insult other people as deeply as possible.
#139 Leni
April 14, 2007

raingodzilla wrote:

The point I’m making is that the supposed misogyny a lot of you seem to have found in Kos’ remarks is just not there.

I agree. I don’t think it was mysogenistic. I just thought it was callous display of juvenile machismo, which was unfortunatley directed at a woman who happened to also be the target of a really nasty hate-mail campaign involving psychotic threats of sexual violence and the posting of her personal information on the internet.

Fair enough?

I can’t imagine why anyone would construe that as, you know… sexist or anything.

….

I’ve never really bothered to read Kos. I’ve seen the site- -it’s a nightmare to look at, and the sheer number of comments makes it nearly impossible to follow discussions. That said, any inclination I might have had to read it is pretty much gone. His response to this situation and Sierra’s suggestion was stupid, shallow, unremarkable and wholly unimpressive. And that’s the nice version.

It’s not that I’d boycott it or that I wouldn’t follow a link there, it’s just one more reason not to bother with the guy or his site. Why? There are plenty of non-assholes out there who are saying more or less the same things he does. If I want to read it I’ll go read them.

….

Aside from all that, the reason I think his response was shallow (at best) is this…

The assertion that a blogger code of ethics won’t prevent x completely ignores the fact that any code of ethics fails that same way for pretty much the same reasons. The Hippocratic oath doesn’t prevent doctors from behaving unethically. The state Bar doesn’t prevent laywers and judges from behaving unethically. What these things do do, aside from the obvious in terms of liscencing, is set a clear standard. It sets a level below which we do not go if we wish to taken seriously by others. A level that we all agree to by specifically affirming the standard. Kos, at least in this post, didn’t bother to consider the implications of what Sierra was proposing.

Further, I think this has a pretty obvious connection to journalistic integrity. Imagine that Sierra were a regular columnist for some largely non-controversial and very popular publication like Scientific American, and that all of this happened at their webpage instead.

I have a hard time imagining, say, the editor of the Washington Post writing an article poo-pooing the harassment, death threats and posting of her personal information and then saying “Why should I bother with a promise to not put up with bad behavior. Someone else will just be mean anyway?”

Come the fuck on. Could he have said anything lamer and more unprofessional without all but agreeing with psychotic creeps who started this whole thing? I doubt it.
#140 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Leni et al: Unless you can point to a place in Kos’ post where he trivializes her position and experience or belittles her *because* she is a woman, or unless you take it for granted that courage and perseverance are “masculine” virtues and that promoting them inherently devalues the “feminine”, I don’t see why you would find Kos’ remarks “sexist.” Insensitivity does not become sexism simply because the object of it is a woman (and frankly, if I were female I’m reasonably certain that I would find the belief that it does rather insulting).
#141 Jeff Fecke
April 14, 2007

Once more, with feeling; go read Chris Clarke:

http://pandagon.net/2007/04/13/how-to-not-be-an-asshole-a-guide-for-men/
#142 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

One wonders how much risk the women who are wary/scared of men are actually in.
#143 RavenT
April 14, 2007

Leni wrote:

Further, I think this has a pretty obvious connection to journalistic integrity. Imagine that Sierra were a regular columnist for some largely non-controversial and very popular publication like Scientific American, and that all of this happened at their webpage instead.

Actually, the University of Washington is currently dealing with a similar situation in real life. On April 2, there was a murder-suicide at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Rebecca Griego was murdered by her ex-boyfriend who had a history and a long paper trail of stalking and threatening her and her immediate family. The people who had been trying to help her had given her extra company during spring break; they thought she would be somewhat safer in her office in a busy building during business hours once the quarter started. That assumption was wrong.

One of the University vice-presidents has acknowledged that the University Police and the College of Architecture and Urban Planning failed to follow their own procedures and develop a plan to lower the risk to her safety. So sensu strictu, it’s true that a code won’t stop a determined psycho, because the UW had not just a code, but a plan for moving the workplace, changing numbers, all kinds of disruption to the victim in an attempt to keep her safe from a psycho she had a restraining order against.

But, as Leni points out:

The assertion that a blogger code of ethics won’t prevent x completely ignores the fact that any code of ethics fails that same way for pretty much the same reasons. The Hippocratic oath doesn’t prevent doctors from behaving unethically. The state Bar doesn’t prevent laywers and judges from behaving unethically. What these things do do, aside from the obvious in terms of liscencing, is set a clear standard. It sets a level below which we do not go if we wish to taken seriously by others. A level that we all agree to by specifically affirming the standard. Kos, at least in this post, didn’t bother to consider the implications of what Sierra was proposing.

As you say, it’s not that such a code of ethics would guarantee to prevent such things–the UW had a specific plan for stalking and death threats that someone didn’t think important enough to bother with in this case. But in deprecating the call for a code of conduct, Kos said:

One or two [emails] actually crossed the line into “death threat” territory. But so what? It’s not as if those cowards will actually act on their threats.

When Kos can produce a validated criterion that distinguishes between the cowards who won’t act on their email threats and the coward that did act on it in this case, then I’ll take his pronouncement seriously.

And sunlight being the best disinfectant, getting this issue out in the open and dealing with it honestly is more effective than his trivialization of the issue.

It’s not that I’d boycott it or that I wouldn’t follow a link there, it’s just one more reason not to bother with the guy or his site. Why? There are plenty of non-assholes out there who are saying more or less the same things he does. If I want to read it I’ll go read them.

Exactly. There are enough non-asshole guys who get it who deserve the support more. And there’s enough work to be done to improve application of domestic-violence policies like the UW has in place, but failed to follow because they don’t take the whole issue seriously, that I think that, at least for me, that’s a better use of time than debating the obvious with people determined not to understand the issue.
#144 Leni
April 14, 2007

Azkyroth et al:

I couldn’t really care less about your little battle here to save Kos from being called “sexist”. Whatever he acted like (or maybe is), at the very least “asshole” ought to cover it. Sexist is just window dressing, at this point.

But take what you can get, right?

Unless you can point to a place in Kos’ post where he trivializes her position and experience or belittles her *because* she is a woman…

Oh, that’s an easy one. That would be the part where he trivialized her experience:

Says Kos:

Most of the time, said “death threats” don’t even exist — evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said “death threats”. I suspect many are like this gem I recently received:

After which he then goes on to completely straw man the situation by insisting her experience must have been like his, when it clearly (and demonstrably) was not.

But of course, we can’t *really* know what Kos’ reasons were. Maybe he was just having a bad day and he really isn’t a big sexist asshat, despite giving every indication to the contrary.

He may not have meant to put himself there, after all. Nevertheless here we are. But mostly, I don’t really care “why” he said what he said. All I know is that he said a some very crappy things that make him look like an unprofessional, sexist fuckstick. If he doesn’t want to look that way, that’s his PR problem, not mine. And isn’t yours either, incidentally.

Azkyroth et al. continue:

or unless you take it for granted that courage and perseverance are “masculine” virtues and that promoting them inherently devalues the “feminine”, I don’t see why you would find Kos’ remarks “sexist.”

I’m not sure how you think this applies to the discussion at hand and frankly, I don’t think I care.
#145 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Kerri F. Dunn

Special privilege indeed.
#146 Leni
April 14, 2007

RavenT wrote:

And sunlight being the best disinfectant, getting this issue out in the open and dealing with it honestly is more effective than his trivialization of the issue.

Definitely.

That pretty much sums up what I think about the blogger code of ethics. It isn’t a fix-all and isn’t meant to be. It’s just meant to raise the bar.
#147 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

Kos wrote:

I’m in and out of commission, so I hadn’t heard of this so-called “death threat” thing.

So he looked it up here and found this:

Ms Sierra described on her blog how she had been subject to a campaign of threats, including a post that featured a picture of her next to a noose.

One might easily assume that this was a description of the most heinous of the threats and graphics she had received. We now know better — but at the time he wrote the entry in question, Kos likely did not.

I don’t read Kos, and maybe that’s a good thing. I have no preconception of his attitudes about… well heck, about anything at all. So I offer this (relatively) unbiased assessment of his controversial blog entry:

Kos failed to do quite enough homework, and this failure has contributed, at least in part, to his shallow dismissal of Kathy Sierra’s situation in what was otherwise a reasonable objection to the idea of establishing a blogger code of ethics.

That assessment is made in addition to, and does not supercede, comments I’ve already made on this thread.

And furthermore:

getting this issue out in the open and dealing with it honestly is more effective than his trivialization of the issue. (#149)

Yup.

—

Caledonian, I think I see the point you’re trying to make by bringing up Kerri Dunn (#151), but I don’t see the value in it. Yup, fraud happens, and sometimes people get away with it – but not Dunn. Help me out please. What am I missing here?
#148 RavenT
April 14, 2007

Help me out please. What am I missing here?

Caledonian doesn’t distinguish between math and science, and so he thinks one counterexample to a general tendency serves to disprove the entire proposition. Like finding a flaw in a proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem invalidates the proof, that kind of thing. So it doesn’t matter how many women are threatened or murdered by real stalkers, the existence of one Dunn “invalidates” the “proof” for him.
#149 Leni
April 14, 2007

Kseniya wrote:

Caledonian, I think I see the point you’re trying to make by bringing up Kerri Dunn (#151)

Well then, you’re one up one me. I didn’t see the point at all.

Especially since it has nothing to do with Kos’ fuck up.
#150 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Caledonian doesn’t distinguish between math and science, and so he thinks one counterexample to a general tendency serves to disprove the entire proposition.

RavenT, whether you hate me is your own business, but could you please try to do so intelligently? A good enemy is the second-best thing to a good friend. A bad enemy is just annoying.

***

As for the point of Ms. Dunn: in our society, there are multiple competing spheres of influence; people belonging to one or another sphere strive constantly to overwhelm the others with their own.

There are subgroups of various social activist groups who characterize the cultural advantages of being male/white/whatever as ‘privileges’ (granted rights or benefits not normally present) and who seek to create new cultural advantages for whichever group they belong to instead of trying to create true equality.

These subgroups exploit the tendency of people to band together into factions according to their sociocultural identifications, and the natural desire to improve one’s lot, in order to increase their power and influence.

Ms. Dunn is such a subgroup member. The people who automatically side with a woman who says she was raped in order to counter the social stigma women face when reporting rapes are too.
#151 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

I think it was someone in these very comments who objected to the example of the Duke lacrosse charges, saying that it wasn’t as if Rich White Men hadn’t been guilty enough before.
#152 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

If I mischaracterized your argument,

If?

The reason I bandy about terms like ‘stupid’, ‘idiot’, and ‘fool’, is that I so often either address stupid idiotic fools or their arguments.

You don’t wish to be called a fool? Don’t act like one. Acknowledging ambiguity is one thing, but pretending that you can’t deduce the obvious implications is quite another. Do you wish to be treated like an idiot with every argument spelled out in full detail, or a reasonably-competent adult who supposedly practices science professionally and has at least an average level of comprehension?

If you don’t want your intelligence insulted, why do you object when I don’t do so?
#153 cmf
April 14, 2007

Re ” Men are not called whores..”
No, actually, women label men many things much worse than ‘whores’; things with actual potential legal consequences.
Like rapsits, deviates, stalkers, batterers, etc., and they are believed without hesitation. So, yeah, call me a whore.
Askinkiss: did you write your last post to me before, or after you removed your oral collostomy bag?

Kseniya and others :I couldn’t ( and won’t ) get past the male bashing Title of Clarke’s article–one more internalized misandrist rant from yet another male who cannot find a lek where he can be part of the rutting unless he takes second or third breeding position.I see why some of these posters would indeed refer us to it, being that they are feminist shills and little neutered apologists for the testosteronally challenged.

KOS is right on track, and I poromise to read more often.
Has anyone out there other than me noticed that Sierra’s site contains some blatantly misandrist posts?

I am feeling so ‘harrassed,’ here…..
#154 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

Right. The ostensible reason for bringing up Dunn is that “Women can undermine ‘male priviledge’ by making stuff up,” but Dunn’s fraud didn’t involve sexual harrassment. She tried to create a racial incident in an already racially-charged environment. So she doesn’t serve very well as a counter-example to the Sierra thing, even if she does serve as proof that women can and will fraudlently cast themselves as victims. To which I say, “Yeah? So?”

But lately I’ve found that I underestimate Caledonian at my peril, and that his comments are often useful to me whether I agree with them or not, so I wonder if he’s getting at something that I’m not seeing. That’s all.
#155 RavenT
April 14, 2007

If I mischaracterized your argument,

Fine. I will take your assurance that I mischaracterized it as being in good faith, and I apologize for my misinterpretation of your response.

You don’t wish to be called a fool?

I don’t care what you call me. Your signal-to-noise ratio just isn’t worth it.
#156 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

But lately I’ve found that I underestimate Caledonian at my peril, and that his comments are often useful to me whether I agree with them or not,

That’s pretty much the reaction I’m going for.

I’m having some trouble posting – going to put it sections to find where the problem is.
#157 Caledonian
April 14, 2007

Ah, the word is b-l-u-s-h-i-n-g. We can’t use that word?! Anyway, I’m flattered.

Dunn anticipated the reaction that her claims and evidence would provoke – that’s why she constructed them. She could anticipate such a reaction because people don’t apply critical thinking to their sociocultural responses. It’s considered extremely poor manners to challenge or question people who are ostenibly the victims of racial or gender prejudice, and with most people, having one’s arguments or positions questioned is equivalent to being attacked – if someone isn’t immediately supportive of the position, they must oppose the position, and they are therefore the enemy.

I’m seeing that kind of madness in this thread, on this subject, and it must be opposed at all costs.
#158 RavenT
April 14, 2007

goddamn HTML and preview.

That should be a double quote; let’s try a hack:

If I mischaracterized your argument,

If?

(ok, this looks right in preview)

Fine. I will take your assurance that I mischaracterized it as being in good faith, and I apologize for my misinterpretation of your response.

You don’t wish to be called a fool?

I don’t care what you call me. Your signal-to-noise ratio just isn’t worth it.
#159 Don Price
April 14, 2007

cmf: I know I should just ignore you, but will you please, please just stop already? You’ve made your “point” 1000 times now. I think it’s safe for you to assume that by now everyone is resoundingly clear on your position (after being so relentlessly bludgeoned by it).

And that was my attempt for the day at grandly farcical understatement… (*rim shot*)

Jeez… It was annoying enough the first several hundred times.
#160 Kseniya
April 14, 2007

CMF:

I couldn’t ( and won’t ) get past the male bashing Title of Clarke’s article

Your aversion is noted, but your opinions of the article aren’t worth the argon flowing out of your mouth unless you actually read it. For all you know, it could be a piece about the role of hox genes in the development of the urethra.

C’mon. Take the plunge. Live dangerously. Come back to us with a “Well, that was crap!” or an “I agreed with his one point about…” or whatever.

Sierra’s site contains some blatantly misandrist posts

Oh. Well. Burn her, then. Burn her!

Caledonian:

That’s pretty much the reaction I’m going for.

Yes. I have learned that.

The cryptic call-and-response mode of communication does have its limitations, though, even if it does at times amuse and challenge the more simple-minded readers among us, such as myself. Others may be impatient with it. But I guess you already know that.
#161 Graculus
April 14, 2007

One wonders how much risk the women who are wary/scared of men are actually in.
Posted by: Caledonian

“Based on an analysis of 103 studies of stalking-related phenomena representing 70,000 participants, the prevalence across studies for women who have been stalked was 23.5 percent and for men was 10.5 percent. The stalking averaged a duration of nearly two years.

The average physical violence incidence rate in the above-mentioned study was 33 percent and the incidence of sexual violence was over 10 percent.” -Sptizberg, B. 2002

“A recent analysis of 13 published studies of 1,155 stalking cases found that the average overall rate of violence experienced by the victims was 38.7 percent.

…stalkers who targeted strangers or acquaintances … ranged from five percent to 14 percent” -Rosenfeld, B. 2004

“The prevalence of anxiety, insomnia, social dysfunction, and severe depression is much higher among stalking victims than the general population, especially if the stalking involves being followed or having one’s property destroyed” – Blaaw, E., et al. 2002

Good enough for ya, Caledonian?
#162 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Oh, that’s an easy one. That would be the part where he trivialized her experience

-Leni

I think you had better reread my post:

Leni et al: Unless you can point to a place in Kos’ post where he trivializes her position and experience or belittles her *because* she is a woman

-Azkyroth. emphasis mine, not in original

I’m waiting…

(More in a bit.)
#163 Chet
April 14, 2007

I’m waiting…

Why? She answered you. The part where he trivialized her experience.

Do you really expect people to come out and admit to sexism while they’re saying sexist things? While that would certainly be helpful, I can’t imagine why you think that would be universal.
#164 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Unless the definition of the term “sexist” changed radically while I’ve been assembling furniture for the past couple hours and no one bothered to inform me, the use of the term implies that Kos reacted to her in a manner less respectful, reasonable, gracious, or considerate, than his reaction would have been if the subject was male, all other things being equal. This is an allegation that you, Leni, and others have flatly and absolutely failed to substantiate, and you seem not even to understand that it SHOULD be substantiated. I explicitly did not contest that his statements were insensitive, but unless you’ve something more substantive to offer in support of your claim that they were motivated by gender prejudice than the simple fact that they were made by a man to a woman, your claims of “sexism” are baseless–so far as I can see it’s just a word you’re using for the emotional connotation, regardless of its actual applicability beyond the most superficial and summary details, which is the basis for my analogy to Godwin’s Law.

You’re smart enough to operate a keyboard; you SHOULD be smart enough to grasp this.
#165 Graculus
April 14, 2007

You’re smart enough to operate a keyboard; you SHOULD be smart enough to grasp this.
Posted by: Azkyroth

It’s sexist because he (Kos) ignores the sexual and gender components of the harassment and threats, and because he is a male, and lives in a world of male priviledge he feels entitled to dismiss her concerns.

You’re smart enough to operate a keyboard; you SHOULD be smart enough to grasp this.
#166 Graculus
April 14, 2007

Graculus: This line of attack is like criticizing Ann Coulter’s looks instead of her policy positions.
Posted by: Azkyroth

Cthoulter had policy postitions?

And here I thought she was just a vile, hateful pustule on the buttocks of the universe.
#167 Chet
April 14, 2007

Unless the definition of the term “sexist” changed radically while I’ve been assembling furniture for the past couple hours and no one bothered to inform me, the use of the term implies that Kos reacted to her in a manner less respectful, reasonable, gracious, or considerate, than his reaction would have been if the subject was male, all other things being equal.

Sure, but if in order to convince you of that, we’d have to peer into an alternate universe where Kathy Sierra was born with a penis, you’re just setting yourself up behind a bulwark of invincible ignorance.

All that, of course, ignores the fact that if Kathy actually had been male, there wouldn’t have been anything for Kos to be dismissive of, because nobody would have been telling Mr. Sierra that they wanted to cut his head off and fuck the stump.

The question, really, is why people like you are so adamantly unwilling to call sexism sexism when we’re all looking right at it. It’s not like we’re accusing Kos of a genocide. We’re making an assertion that he’s engaging in speech that serves to disadvantage women, and supporting those who are engaging in such speech. Proof by inspection is sufficient to substantiate such an accusation.

You seem to believe that Kos’s response can be considered in isolation from the subject, from context, and from society in general. It’s this kind of logic-chopping obtuseness that allows sexism to persist in otherwise progressive contexts.
#168 Azkyroth
April 14, 2007

Hmm. So the intent of the speaker is irrelevant to whether terms that attribute specific motives to the speaker are applicable. I’ll…keep that in mind… O.o

Once you’re done grinding that axe, I’d like to call your attention to something from my first post:

With that said, I definitely second exposing these people as a way of fighting back. I know there’s a lot of information that can be gained about people who threaten (or confess to) violence online, much more than these scumbags probably realize, and the overwhelming majority of them are likely to wet down their legs when the stalking and harassment they believed they could commit with impunity comes back to haunt them. I’m thinking a few very high-profile cases of publicizing information on these people (forwarding their emails and comments to their present or future employers and/or close family members sounds like a particularly powerful route) and making their crimes an albatross around their necks would go a long way towards discouraging others of their ilk. An organized effort in the blogosphere and cyberspace in general to ensure this happens would be worthwhile, so long as we recognized the potential of our efforts to be abused (to slime someone innocent, etc.) and avoided a “shoot first and avoid follow-up questions later” policy.

For people sending these comments from public computers, IP addresses where unsecured computers are available, and whose administrators do not make reasonable efforts to prevent their misuse, are easy enough to block; most major IRC networks do this with unsecured proxy servers as a matter of course….though it would be worth thinking long and hard about whether the cost in viewer access is worth the benefit in denying access to the maliciously anonymous.

Any thoughts? Or am I distracting you too much from the REALLY important issue here?
#169 Chet
April 15, 2007

So the intent of the speaker is irrelevant to whether terms that attribute specific motives to the speaker are applicable.

I don’t see where I said that, but are you saying it’s impossible to be unintentionally sexist? I don’t see how that’s the case.

Any thoughts?

Christ, could you get over yourself for just a Goddamn second? Why on Earth would you think this is a thread about your personal thoughts on internet security and IP deanonymization tools?
#170 Kseniya
April 15, 2007

CMF:

“I stand where I stood before”

You mean in nearly complete ignorance of what Clarke actually had to say? Yes, I can see that.

Your position seems largely if not entirely dependent on the presupposition that Sierra “engineered” this. Evidence, please? Until you provide some, I’m disinclined to take that charge very seriously. Do I think she implicated Chris Locke, and others, unfairly? Yes, almost certainly. People make mistakes when they panic. Mistakes can be addressed.

In any case, your accusation does not appear to be very robust.

By the way, you still haven’t made any attempt to add support to that argument you left wobbling precariously atop the notion that a strip club is somehow typical of the restaurant business. If you were joking, that’s fine. Either way, I’ve gotten a few chuckles out of it already!

As for the Salem Witch Trials, you’re being way too literal. Or obtuse. Or both. You want to talk fuzzy math? Ok. All I was trying to suggest was that your equation:

��”Sierra bashes some guy named Andrist [whoever he is]”

��_EQUALS_

��”It’s ok to threaten to hang her, rape her, slit her throat, complete with illustrations”

is a little out of balance.
#171 Azkyroth
April 15, 2007

I don’t see where I said that, but are you saying it’s impossible to be unintentionally sexist? I don’t see how that’s the case.

I’m saying that the burden of proof remains on the “prosecution” even when the “defendent” is “charged” with something the accuser really, really, really doesn’t like, even when that something is a genuine societal pathology. “Presumed sexist until proven sexist” is not a defensible approach to these sorts of statements, and I’m reasonably certain that if the topic at hand were any less of a hot-button issue for you, you would realize this.

Christ, could you get over yourself for just a Goddamn second? Why on Earth would you think this is a thread about your personal thoughts on internet security and IP deanonymization tools?

Interesting. I wonder if your unequivocal inability to accurately recapitulate and address quite literally any point I make is the result of a genetic defect, or whether it’s due to subsequent brain damage. Discuss?

Were you to read the paragraphs of my previous post I quoted, you might notice some sort of relevance to the issue of online stalking and harassment, namely specific suggestions for a community response aimed at discouraging such threats and ensuring that people who send them get what’s coming to them, along with some potentially fruitful approaches. As in, you know, a suggestion for accomplishing something productive. Terribly sorry. We now return you to your regularly scheduled axe-grinding…

(Incidentally, have you ever bothered to ask Ms. Sierra how she feels about her distress being made the mascot of your incoherent little crusade?)

PS: PZ, why on earth is CMF still commenting here? I’m about ready to smack the hateful little troll; the least you could do is disemvowel it.
#172 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

How interesting that so many emphasize the importance of “experience” and its profoundly subjective nature – we can’t deny that people have experienced what they say they have, gone through what they say they’ve gone through, felt what they say they’ve felt, etc.

The prominence of emotion is particularly striking. Is this merely a coincidence, or is the importance given to social narratives and feelings related to the traditionally-feminine associations of those things?
#173 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

Cross-posting fun:

When did the practice of referring to male sociocultural advantage as ‘privilege’ begin?

It’s a fantastic example of embedding assumptions about a problem in the terminology used to discuss it, but it’s fairly inaccurate. Privileges are specially-granted rights or abilities not available in the default state. The ability to walk down a street at night while being slightly less afraid for one’s life/physical integrity is not a privilege granted to men. It’s a consequence of biology and society.
#174 Chet
April 15, 2007

I’m saying that the burden of proof remains on the “prosecution” even when the “defendent” is “charged” with something the accuser really, really, really doesn’t like, even when that something is a genuine societal pathology.

Right, but we’ve gone well beyond “burden of proof” – which has been met for all reasonable people by now – and into “I’ll never be convinced except under physically impossible conditions.” That’s invincible ignorance.

I’m reasonably certain that if the topic at hand were any less of a hot-button issue for you, you would realize this.

This is just well-poisoning, of course.

Were you to read the paragraphs of my previous post I quoted

I read them, Azk. If you could get over your truly astounding ego for just a second, you might have realized that the reason that I’ve refrained from commenting is because I wasn’t interested in doing so, and because your much-loved paragraphs were completely irrelevant to anything I was saying.

If you have suggestions for how to deal with internet stalking, why don’t you take them to people who can implement them?
#175 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

Right, but we’ve gone well beyond “burden of proof” – which has been met for all reasonable people by now

But you’re defining who the “reasonable people” are by whether they accept that the evidence you’ve presented justifies the conclusions you’re forwarding.
#176 cv
April 15, 2007

Okay now chet has deteriorated into not making any sense what-so-ever.

astounding ego? get over yourself?

psssst insults only work when they aren’t so far removed from the situation that they are comedic.

Also: five dollars said you either didn’t read azkyroth’s comments or didn’t understand them. “Irrelevant to anything I was saying”??

I would say you were a troll but the majority of your and cmf’s comments are just so oblivious that I don’t think even a troll could pretend to think things like them.

Ya… your a real gem. Throughout this you and cmf have been making personal attacks, doing nothing to support your positions and just being incredible douches.
#177 RavenT
April 15, 2007

PS: PZ, why on earth is CMF still commenting here? I’m about ready to smack the hateful little troll; the least you could do is disemvowel it.

PZ, in the spirit of transparency, sunshine being the best dinsinfectant, and all that, I request that you *don’t* disemvowel or ban him. That would just make it easier for everyone here who pretends that women don’t get particular harassment on the web to go back to business as usual.

Leaving him here as an example of what we get that they don’t, on the other hand, serves as an excellent object lesson. Please leave him as is in all his glory. And if it bugs anyone, well, maybe there’s a reason for that.
#178 PZ Myers
April 15, 2007

I don’t ban or disemvowel people for merely being disagreeable or insane. CMF is babbling his point of view on a thread that is about that point of view, so I’m going to let it slide.

Trolls start babbling their point of view on threads that are not about that particular topic — if/when he starts infesting other threads and detracting from on-topic discussions, that’s when the guillotine blade comes down.
#179 Chet
April 15, 2007

But you’re defining who the “reasonable people” are by whether they accept that the evidence you’ve presented justifies the conclusions you’re forwarding.

Nonsense. You’re just leveling the same accusations you’ve been making from the get-go – that I and others who perceived the sexism inherent in Kos’s response (regardless of his intent) perceived it because we’re “obsessed”, that we’re unreasonable, and if we can’t use mental telepathy, astral projection, or travel to alternate universes to prove what Kos would have done in an innumerable number of alternate realties, our perception is unfounded.

I’m happy to leave it to the readers to decide who is being reasonable and who is not.

Also: five dollars said you either didn’t read azkyroth’s comments or didn’t understand them. “Irrelevant to anything I was saying”??

Did you read what I wrote? Did you read what he’s been pestering me to reply to? I’ve replied to everything that I felt was relevant to the argument I was having. If someone else wants to address his Secret Plan to Battle Internet Stalkers, they’re welcome to, but I have no interest in doing so, because it’s irrelevant to the argument I was making. He might as well be pestering me for my thoughts on his recipe for Tofu Blondies for all the relevance that has to what I’ve been saying.

Ya… your a real gem.

Is there a point to this? I looked in your post for a response to my arguments but I couldn’t find any.
#180 Graculus
April 15, 2007

How interesting that so many emphasize the importance of “experience” and its profoundly subjective nature – we can’t deny that people have experienced what they say they have, gone through what they say they’ve gone through, felt what they say they’ve felt, etc.

The prominence of emotion is particularly striking. Is this merely a coincidence, or is the importance given to social narratives and feelings related to the traditionally-feminine associations of those things?

Posted by: Caledonian

“Men have egos, women have feelings”

We all know how women are unable to achieve higher cognitive function, being such bundles of “subjective” “feelings”.

Guess what, it isn’t about the feeling of being targetted. It’s about actually, you know, being targetted.
#181 daelstorm
April 15, 2007

Kos’ update

Obviously Kos should have carefully seperated his argument against the ‘blogger ethics’ nonsense and his remarks about the threats against Sierra. But, many people are too quick to insert a few extra paragraphs of bullshit into his post. It’s common for us to try to fill in the blanks with a plot-line that fits our worst expectations.

Kos is guilt only of writing a post that was misconstrued due to his writing style/lack of careful rereading. I think people misjudge him because reading between the lines is so much easier than reading what’s written as-is, and because there has been a long history of between-the-lines sexism in society. (plenty of obvious sexism, too)
#182 ElizabethM
April 15, 2007

Caledonian,

Privileges are specially-granted rights or abilities not available in the default state.

Earning 33 extra cents on the dollar is not something intrinsic to your penis. (Unless your penis is extraordinarily talented.) It’s a “privilege” granted those in your class by society. If you feel that things which are consequences of society and biology cannot be privileges, I invite you to supply a single example of privilege which is not a function of either. On the obverse, please diagram your perpetual motion machine.

Your interesting assumption that you should be able to define what is and isn’t sexism, that when discussing the matter the sexual violence aspect does not deserve to be discussed, that those accusing Kos of sexist action need to prove sexist intent and your insistence on living untroubled by inconvenient realities which, if you looked at them face on, might cause you to feel a troubling obligation to redress them: all these are privilege.

I can wait.
#183 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

Earning 33 extra cents on the dollar is not something intrinsic to your penis.

The studies that were the source for that infamous statistic were comparing the relative contributions of men and women to the total earned income, not the salaries of men and women in the same position.
#184 Chet
April 15, 2007

not the salaries of men and women in the same position.

Men and women don’t hold the same positions; that’s rather the point. I, personally, need a little more justification than your say-so to believe that such a study is invalid unless it’s performed from precisely the assumptions that you specify.
#185 Chris
April 15, 2007

We’re making an assertion that he’s engaging in speech that serves to disadvantage women, and supporting those who are engaging in such speech.

Aha. I think we have here the crux of the disagreement.

Most of the people on this thread other than Chet (who is quoted above) seem to define sexism as “speech or behavior hostile toward women on the basis of their sex”. Chet, on the other hand, seems to be working from a far more inclusive definition like “speech or behavior that has a harmful effect on women”. Note that you can be unintentionally harmful, but you can’t be unintentionally hostile. Hostility is a matter of intent.

Thus all the talking-past-one-another regarding whether Kos’s post is clearly sexist, clearly not sexist, ambiguous, etc. We’re literally not discussing the same issue. Kos may indeed have blundered into saying something that was hurtful to Ms. Sierra and/or women in general. But if he didn’t do it on purpose, then ipso facto it isn’t sexism by most people’s definitions. There’s no malice.

Which I guess leaves us back where we started – Kos screwed up.

P.S. Kos has recently posted a followup here. It’s not precisely an apology, but makes it clear (IMO) that he wasn’t saying many of the things he was accused of saying. Which, in turn, may imply his wording left much to be desired, since it was so prone to misinterpretation.
#186 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

Men and women don’t hold the same positions; that’s rather the point.

Exactly.

Which, in turn, may imply his wording left much to be desired, since it was so prone to misinterpretation.

Isn’t that blaming the victim?
#187 Chet
April 15, 2007

Exactly.

Exactly exactly.

Kos may indeed have blundered into saying something that was hurtful to Ms. Sierra and/or women in general. But if he didn’t do it on purpose, then ipso facto it isn’t sexism by most people’s definitions.

Look, he didn’t type that stuff by mistake. His words weren’t generated by random keystrokes. Sexists never think they’re treating women unfairly; they’re sexist because they believe that the egalitarian, fair way to treat a woman is to put her in her place.

That’s what Kos was doing – putting someone in her place. Dismissing her concerns as No Big Deal would have, in his view, meant a change in how he would have had to act. So, he took up arms to defend his privilege.

That’s why it’s sexism. I don’t think for a minute that Kos saw an uppity woman that he had to put down. I think he saw the potential restriction of his privilege, and he reacted to defend it. That’s no less sexist.
#188 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

That’s what Kos was doing – putting someone in her place. Dismissing her concerns as No Big Deal would have, in his view, meant a change in how he would have had to act.

I think you mean NOT dismissing her concerns.

You seem to be arguing “sexists don’t think they’re sexists, Kos doesn’t think he’s sexist, Kos is therefore sexist”.

What about dismissing her concerns because they’re really not realistic, proportional, or “a big deal”?
#189 j
April 15, 2007

Caledonian, it is not up to you to judge whether the threats against Sierra were “realistic, proportional, or ‘a big deal,’” as you were not the recipient of those threats.
#190 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

Since when do we not have the right to evaluate the claims of others?
#191 j
April 15, 2007

I am not saying you do not have the right to evaluate others’ claims, whatever that’s supposed to mean. I am merely suggesting that your evaluation will be inaccurate and biased because of your point of view.
#192 Graculus
April 15, 2007

reading between the lines is so much easier than reading what’s written as-is

OK, here’s “as-is”:

“Most of the time, said “death threats” don’t even exist — evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said “death threats”.

“If they can’t handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work.”

It would help if you actually read the source material that is being discussed before accusing people of “reading between the lines”.
#193 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

How, exactly, is the seriousness of a threat determined by the perception of the people who receives it?

What, precisely, makes me any more inherently inaccurate and biased than the recipient? And what makes you qualified to judge who’s accurate and unbiased?

It seems to me that you’re trying to establish a new kind of “privilege” in which people you approve of can make whatever claims they wish and not have them examined or even challenged.
#194 RavenT
April 15, 2007

Kos is guilt only of writing a post that was misconstrued due to his writing style/lack of careful rereading. I think people misjudge him because reading between the lines is so much easier than reading what’s written as-is

Funny how so many of the personal-responsibility crowd are willing in this case to give a pass to a writer for carelessness and put the responsibility/burden of determining what is really meant on the reader.

I’m sure it is only a unique coincidence that the writer is male and the readers being criticized for not doing enough to discern his real meaning are female, as this kind of gender-correlated burden-shifting never occurs otherwise, and we’ve never had this conversation thousands of times before.

P.S. Kos has recently posted a followup here. It’s not precisely an apology, but makes it clear (IMO) that he wasn’t saying many of the things he was accused of saying.

No, I think it’s pretty clear that he said that stalkers never follow through on their threats, as in his quote that I cited above. And he’s right, they don’t–except when they do.

As I said, when Kos can produce his validated criterion for distinguishing between real stalker threats and pseudo-threats, then I’ll take his trivialization of Sierra’s situation seriously; until then, there are plenty of non-asshole guys who deserve the traffic and support more.
#195 j
April 15, 2007

No, Caledonian, I’m trying to point out the obvious: that women in this society are oppressed, and you cannot possibly understand that oppression unless you are female.
#196 Caledonian
April 15, 2007

No, the women who live in societies where they throw acid in your face if you’re not covered head-to-toe with cloth are oppressed.

Women in this society are frequently disadvantaged, which is not at all the same thing.
#197 cmf
April 15, 2007

Caledonian, bless your heart for the wisdom;-)
“No, the women who live in societies where they throw acid in your face if you’re not covered head-to-toe with cloth are oppressed,”.
Imight add that the oppression of women in America begins and ends with their own mothers expectations of them, not mine, or any other males expectations.
Further, I maintain that they choose the oppression here, unlike every 9-5 JHoe Baloney who is virtually relegated to the role of truck driver, pallette tosser, ditch digger, burger flipper by womens choices.
Women oppressed–have any of those who maintain this junk actually left your houses lately? Academic offices are chock full o’ females; any government job where i have ever been to get a license, fill out legal paperwork, etc, is staffed by almost exclusively females; etc, etc.
Too bad that the folks who bandy this oppressed American woman crap around live in the selective feminist readings section of the 1970′s.
#198 Graculus
April 15, 2007

every 9-5 JHoe Baloney who is virtually relegated to the role of truck driver, pallette tosser, ditch digger, burger flipper by womens choices.

I’m going to have this framed and mounted right next to the one from the creationist claiming that mammals weren’t animals.
#199 cmf
April 15, 2007

p.s. CALEDONIAN??!!
the more I read, the more it occurs to me that Caledonian is the only brain with a ticking sound in it. A ticking sound that isn’t a fallacious Google bomb, or feministic meme mine.Cal, you are on to something.
Not only would that whole circa 1971 statistic of 33 cents on the dollar be relegated to absooluuuute crap( if it wasn’t for all of those single mother raised little boy feminists out there yakking about womens rights, in lieu of their own)if we took just TAKE ONE BILL GATES OUT OF THE EQUATION, but then, I am sure they would then go ‘global’ and posit the worlds wealth no longer in American terms, but en todo mundo terms–again shifting the debate from their fallacious lies.
Does anybody out there have the capacity to rework that whole 33 to the dollar crap, i.e. take one E Howard Hunt, and a Bill Gates out of the equation, and then see where the money is at?
#200 j
April 15, 2007

http://www.rainn.org/statistics/index.html
http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/

Right. American women are just disadvantaged. Especially the 200,000 or so women who were raped in 2005. Caledonian, when a troll like cmf is agreeing with you and stating outright that women choose their oppression, you know you are completely detached from reality.
#201 Chet
April 15, 2007

You seem to be arguing “sexists don’t think they’re sexists, Kos doesn’t think he’s sexist, Kos is therefore sexist”.

And you seem to be having trouble reading plain statements in English.

What I wrote was abundantly clear, typos aside. You’ve got a reputation around here, Cal, for clear, rigorous thinking. Why don’t you prove it’s not undeserved and go back for another crack?

What about dismissing her concerns because they’re really not realistic, proportional, or “a big deal”?

Since that’s not what he did, why don’t we restrict the conversation to events that actually occurred? The police determined that these were credible threats. Of course, that doesn’t stop some people from dismissing any kind of threat when the target is a woman.
#202 Chet
April 15, 2007

if we took just TAKE ONE BILL GATES OUT OF THE EQUATION

So, what you’re saying is, if we ignore all the men who get paid more than women, then really, men don’t get paid any more than women do?

That’s truly an insightful realization on your part. Look, I’ll let you take Bill Gates. Take the top 5, in fact. How many of them are men? I’m sure that’s just a statistical anomaly, right? I mean we’ve already established that the only jobs for men are fry-cooks and truck drivers, right?
#203 cmf
April 15, 2007

Rape is a term of political and social convenience, designed to monsterize males at large. The larger, unadressed problem with rape( which does not belong in this dialogue about webthreats) is that it is a term that designates male touch as bad, female touch as good,because it suits a political agenda. The real issue is that a large number of rapists report that they were sexually abused as children, by women, yet their is little or no research into that area, b/c it has not been proven to generate as much lobbyist money. Worse yet, female sexual abuse of children( which creates rapists) is normalized.
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume13/j13_1_2.htm

Further, the expedience of ‘crushing patriarchy’( which I have an opinion on, and implied in the material of anyone who sends me to a RAINN site, is that I am against that idea-a whole nother topic-but for now, and the Sierra discussion I maintain otherwise)got in the way of truth, justice, and facts, as evidenced by all of the years of research about domestic violence that flew in the face of the MacKinnon/FBI stats collusion:
Great counter bibliography, for those who love Rainn stats
http://www.batteredmen.com/fiebert.htm
But j, how do you feel about me being threatened above anyways? Or don’t I count? Or, am I just a woman with a different view point that flies in the face of the expected ‘woman/victim” dichotomies of the matriarchs? Or if male do I count less because their are enough of them pawing dirt in the lek, and lining the bower with blue shiny things already?
#204 PZ Myers
April 15, 2007

cmf, you were not threatened with physical harm of any kind. You were threatened with being refused the privilege of commenting here, and with the vowels in your text being imperiled. Your reaction to that undercuts all of your arguments — being told that you are a pest on the internet is qualitatively different from being told you should be hunted down and executed.

Go take one of your happy pills and lie down for a while, OK?
#205 PZ Myers
April 15, 2007

Rape is a term of convenience? Are you insane?
#206 cmf
April 15, 2007

Chet: I don’t wanna get into the whole pitting of peoples against peoples thing, it is beyond my knowledge base. But I am old enough to have seen a few things, in this order:
1) the crushing of the unions in the fifies-seventies
2)the then useful tool of race as a spoiler to decrease wages
3)the then useful tool of sex as a spoiler
4) the stereotypes of evil white men/good black men/good white women as justification to decrease wages even more
5)the continuuing stereotype of evil white men as spoiler, edging towards white women -almost as bad
6) the current rhetoric of ‘illegals’ taking jobs with a twist: they deserve them more than white women etc.
7) go on? Todays debates about gender, and the gay community deserving the marriage benefit, health benefits, because straight couples don’t work out, etc etc,
So what I am saying is that the archetypes/stereotypes here are destructive, and not a good thing for building any sense of unity, and here, in this case, it started with yet another white woman crying wolf.
And thanks for noting the validity of the Gates argument. Can you help me with the math? What is impoortant is updating the old, not necessarily tossing it out. Sure, in SOME cases, at SOME levels of wealth, women do worse. But white women ALWAYS do better than black women, white women ALWAYS do as good or better than black men….wana keep splitting the baby? When does it end?
#207 j
April 15, 2007

I am through feeding the trolls.
#208 Chet
April 15, 2007

And thanks for noting the validity of the Gates argument.

LOL! Now I know you’re kidding. Thanks for the laugh, CMF. You really had me convinced that you were an idiot, before. Well done!
#209 cmf
April 15, 2007

Kseniya: Yeah, the strip bar waitress. Of course I was being facitious, with extra bread. It was a comment in regards to yours about the service industry.I worked their on many fronts, union and all, and I can tell you w/out hesitation that not everyone like beards or boobs in their soup.
So in the low ball bohemian joints, women did/do better w/ tips,and boobs in the soup; in the strip bars, women always do better w/ tips because strip clubs DO NOT HIRE MALE SERVERS,and women are equally employed as servers/bartenders; and in all other service industry wait staff jobs, I encounter this remarkable non gendered ration: good server= good tips.
Don: and who are you again?
Grackle: thank you for the honor of resigning my comments to the obscurity of your blog. Evidently, you live in it, not the real world, where womens birth choices relegate men to lives that are based on the mothers limited concept of how the world works– a world where the PC are likely to buy their boys little dump trucks instead of doctor kits, but never buy them a squirt gun. Come out of that Ivory and Ebony towere once in awhile> all those guys you are rabid about were likely raised in these type of environments, and the great maternal minds that populated it.
#210 cmf
April 15, 2007

PZ: “Political convenience” is different than convenient. And not one salient honest discussion of the “implied threat” or the “objectification”..wowo…sos, um, double standardie…wow, maybe those righties are rightie, a religion of atheism….the right=patriarchy, the left = matriarchal longing…

Chet: I had to read your hypocritical ass dropped drivel before I could reply to your snipe.

YOU WROTE “I doubt that Kathy would have had her head photoshopped into hardcore pornography, or had her address posted on the internet, or received emails about decapitating her and raping her, if she were a man.”

Any thoughts on your fellow idiot threatening to smack me around?
And gee whizz, any interesting thoughts on the links I posted, re: Rainn propaganda -vs- Feibert?
Prolly not.
Kos was and remains right, in the leftest sense, despite pseudo apololgy: the he stands for free thoughts not constricted by the absolutist cuckoldry exhibited here on this topic.
#211 cmf
April 15, 2007

p.s.
j, et al, what exactly is your definition of a troll? I mean, is it ” anyone with a different point of view”?
I bet you didn’t even check my links.
#212 cmf
April 15, 2007

PZ: I was merely positing an equalist perspective: no doubt you are aware that long after VAWA 1&2 rolled around, we finally had PRRA,
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4425&sequence=0 and only with the caveat that the same lobby that built the prison system and ‘framed’ the rape culture, profitted from its definitions, etc,was able to minimize the impact of the fact gathering process inside the prisons.

If rape were NOT a convenient political definition, we would have addressed the ‘factory’ as soon as we addressed the ‘market’ of that idea. Prisons are rape factories, designed to pit race against race, over the supposed fulcrum of power exerted through rape. The prison growth industry/lobby has equally created some interesting thinking in regards to this, especially amongst academics and their matrilineal intellectual progeny.
#213 Carlie
April 15, 2007

I got Bingo a long time ago, although it was a race between cmf and Caldonian as to who got there first.

Working on a creationist version now.

Hm, scienceblogs isn’t liking me doing links today. Fine, the cut’n'paste version: Bingo – http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=431
#214 RavenT
April 15, 2007

I got Bingo a long time ago, although it was a race between cmf and Caldonian as to who got there first.

Well, if anything was overdetermined, that would be it .

On the other hand, considering Cal’s new friend, I’m reconsidering my turn-down of the “enemy” slot he offered me earlier.
#215 cmf
April 15, 2007

minimizers remind me of the days whe we said of women with opinions that they are “loud mouthed” ” annoying” and should “know their place”…best of all that what they have experienced does not exist, because the popular people don’t talk about it, make fun of it, and deny it outright, without ever doing the homework of “believing”. I guess I am learning that here, again;-(
Is their never a time to recalculate the old data, reframe the paradigms?
#216 Chet
April 15, 2007

best of all that what they have experienced does not exist, because the popular people don’t talk about it, make fun of it, and deny it outright, without ever doing the homework of “believing”.

You and Kos should get along pretty well, then.
#217 j
April 15, 2007

Carlie, I was just about to fill out another bingo board for this thread!
#218 Kseniya
April 15, 2007

Yes, CMF, the phenomenon of battered males is quite real, and predictably more prevalent among men whose women force them to work at IHOP.
#219 Kseniya
April 15, 2007

CMF: You’re still dancing (exotically, but artlessly) around the restaurant issue.

CMF: You’ve still provided no evidence whatsoever to support your claim that Sierra “engineered” this, a claim you’ve made no fewer than five times here.

CMF: Your milking of the “smack” phrase as a threat against your person is transparently disingenous. AS IF that equates to the threats made against Sierra. Please.

CMF: Yes, woman-on-boy child sex abuse does exist, and is probably under-reported. Still: “The real issue is that a large number of rapists report that they were sexually abused as children, by women”. Citation please? “Female sexual abuse of children [...] creates rapists.” Citation please? “Worse yet, female sexual abuse of children( which creates rapists) is normalized.” Cita… oh. Never mind. You’ve provided a link to your “proof” of this, which turns out to be a paper submitted by a freshman cultural anthropology university student in The Netherlands. Impressive. You have shaken my world-view all the way down to the turtles.

Dang. Running out of troll food here. Sigh.
#220 Kseniya
April 15, 2007

Yup Carlie, the bingo board is a keeper. Bookmarked, with thanks.
#221 cmf
April 16, 2007

Yikes. Kseniya writes “Yes, CMF, the phenomenon of battered males is quite real, and predictably more prevalent among men whose women force them to work at IHOP.”

Such blatant classism. Such horrible denial of abuse, and a great example of systemic, peculiarly American style societal acceptance of said female perpetrated abuse.Not to mention heavy doses of pariarchal presumption that abuse victims who are male are 1) straight 2) gender identified as male 3) remotely even attached to the idea that heterogenous social customs are even acceptable 4) big huge fattie called etc.
I guess your points are taken: rape is minimized and discussions are moot when you adopt the strategy of patriarchal denial.
I am converted. Vive la feministas, the rapists, and especially those who use small threats instead of large ones to stifle discussion. Vive America La Violent.
Freshman paper? That is no ordinary freshman: that is a medical doctor writing in a widely accepted journal on child abuse. That freshman is not the average freshman, it was D. F. Janssen, MD., returning as mature student, medical doctor, and now, a cultural anthropologist–for whatever those labels are worth. Here is a bio if you actually give a shit.http://www.boyhoodstudies.com/dj.pdf
You are out yer ever lovin’ mind Ksenya.Nice try at diffusion tho’.Fact is the dialogue has shfted, but I will stay with ya here. I only suggested at the beginning of my post that there are cause and effect scenarios for said Sierra incident. What a firestorm that was

“woman-on-boy child sex abuse does exist Kesinya, read through the IPT pieces ( it is a big ‘ol journal), and judge for your self. It is not just a momma son kind o’ dealand certainly the hostility at the topic should signify otherwise, re>> the reactions of these women posters and their male enablers to the very topic should give you a clue that the topic is deeper than mothers and sons.

For instance Dr. Jansen notes that ” while clitoridectomy and other bloody morphology alterations have received extensive criticism, there seems to be a concurrent disregard of the young cunnus being subject to the extensive cosmetic of functional preparation in some way or another practised in a large number of (African and Oceanic) societies[14]. The issue of abuse is a more problematic one here (the girls may practice it in groups).”

Follow the trail,Kseniya and come to your own conclusions.I only know that the literature here is rare indeed, as rare as dissent on Sierra. Can I cite with certainty thta the whole thing was engineered? I can only ask you, and everyone else who has given her4 more publicity that the issue was worth, and also note that the jury ain’t in yet as to even the facts of the case. So, yeah, the evidence will be shown if and when someone is charged, and my money is on that will as likely happen as me being able to stay on this dsspost much longer, or the issue of misandrist statements on her blog, or Carlies for that matter, ever getting discussed in public;-)

I feel like Jeezus here, beggin’ my little digits for fire and thunder to come poppin out, but no miracles yet are ‘froth’-coming from my fingertips. Wait and see comes the analyst in me;-)

Kseniya, I am not sure what you want to know about the strip bars, but gee you are persistent on that one;-) Just ask, but if I am
“milking of the “smack” phrase as a threat against your person is transparently disingenous. AS IF that equates to the threats made against Sierra,” then exactly when is the time to bring note to such violent innuendos? I mean, I am here just sqattin in guano waiting for Gracula and Chit and the rest of them to hunt me down! Even after I ate my happy making jelly beans;-(

But it was NOT just a threat to kick me offa the board, because that would be your job PZ, not Arkensas, who made the comment. It was’nt directed at my “vowels” so much as my jowels.

Oh, yeah, unless I forget dear dear Caqrlie and her crappy lil’ bingo board: Carlie, I am not a nice person,( should I be? I mean you feminasties ditched nice years ago right? Me 2;-)
OH: and I ‘get’ plenty, whether I am ‘nice or not’, but I imagine your board didn’t anticipate that comment right?
YUCK: imagine if “gettin’ some” were actually all we had to look forward to in life? But I have heard that the outback provides little in the way of other stimuli. Let me guess : your minimalization is your way of telling me ” what’s a matta, can’t ya take a joke,” Right? hardees har hear ya there;-) Why don’t you go get ‘enculturated’ a little deeper.
Not.
#222 prismatic, so prismatic
April 16, 2007

Well, just read the whole thread, soup to nuts (as it were), and that sure was a big chunk of my life–and precious bodily fluids–I won’t be getting back.

Most of the relevant horses have been beaten to death already, but I was troubled by one element that never was addressed explicitly with a link: what exactly were these “misandric” images on Kathy Sierra’s website that inspired such invective (i.e., that she has it in for men, et cetera)? So I went back over there and took a look. I assume this is the material in question.

If so, I have to say: that was funny as hell. I’m a guy–the very model of the aging doughy tech jockey–and have seen enough bad software over time to relate exactly to what she was talking about. If you haven’t already looked over there yourself, I heartily recommend it for a quick laugh.

What I didn’t see was some sort of Oppression Of The Male, and that’s worth bringing up only because various–um, let’s call them “points”–have been made that suggest she was coming off as some sort of man-hater. (As if that would justify the nature of the threats, but like I said, horses, bodily fluids, etc.) Perhaps my internalized wussification really is to blame (though I had two fine parents, and the lack of hair on the top of my head suggests testosterone deficiency isn’t the problem either)–but I guess if you really want to see the face of Jesus in the tortilla bad enough, any old tortilla will do.

Or perhaps “if you have a hammer…”, as was sagely advised above.

-pr
#223 Azkyroth
April 16, 2007

Did you read what I wrote? Did you read what he’s been pestering me to reply to? I’ve replied to everything that I felt was relevant to the argument I was having. If someone else wants to address his Secret Plan to Battle Internet Stalkers, they’re welcome to, but I have no interest in doing so, because it’s irrelevant to the argument I was making. He might as well be pestering me for my thoughts on his recipe for Tofu Blondies for all the relevance that has to what I’ve been saying.

-Chet

No need to reply; you’ve already posted my response for me:

Christ, could you get over yourself for just a Goddamn second?
#224 Kseniya
April 16, 2007

CMF:

Such blatant classism. Such horrible denial of abuse

Uh…. Were you born without a sense of humor, or did you hope to give yourself some “edge” by having it surgically removed?

The IHOP line was a back-reference to your first rebuttal of my restaurant comment, a poke at your insistence that men are seriously limited in their career choices by the life-choices of their women, and a bit of a word-play. It’s no good if I have to explain it, though.

(I seem to have gotten away with calling you a mouth-breather earlier, too. Heh. Sorry! Just be grateful I let you off the hook for relying on an historical inaccuracy regarding the Salem Witch Trials. Feh.)

Point taken on Dr. Jannsen. I should have looked deeper. Still, I don’t agree that the paper proves that that kind of abuse is “normalized” in American society, though I admit that my rushed reading of the paper may have impaired my comprehension.

You are out yer ever lovin’ mind Ksenya

Ya think? No. I’m not. Your myopia does not make me ????????. You, on the other hand, bear a passing resemblance to Norman Bates. Which is a shame because obviously you have a “ticking” brain, as you yourself might say. (When is it set to go off? Oops. Too late. I’ve already been caught in the blast.)

I’m not quite sure how me saying “Woman-on-boy child sex abuse does exist” equates to me denying it exists, or to me saying it’s exclusively an ?ncestuous phenomenon. Maybe I should have typed in ALL-CAPS? What’s your point? If it’s “This is real, it matters, check it out,” I have no problem with that. It is real, and it does matter.

But clitoridectomies and other practices of African and Oceanic societies are relevant to abuse of boys by adult females in Western societies… how? In that they are performed/perpetrated by adult females…? (Just a wild guess.)

I am not sure what you want to know about the strip bars

YHGTBFKM. � � O.o

then exactly when is the time to bring note to such violent innuendos?

I concede this one, with the understanding that the degree of threat is significantly different.

And to be fair, I do detect a sense of humor. However, you overestimate yourself and underestimate everyone else. This inhibits your ability and willingness to perceive wit, intelligence, subtlety or nuance in the expressions of those with whom you disagree (and are predisposed to think of as morons, fools, militant feministas or their compliant enabler-sheep, or some combination thereof). Not to mention that your views on women and on gender roles and relations are appalling, or that your presentation reeks of provokation. That said, if you were to claim that you were hit with the “troll” label prematurely, I wouldn’t disagree. Hey, fair is fair.
#225 Caledonian
April 16, 2007

cmf claims that, because he was threatened with being disemvoweled, his cannot properly represent his argument – which involves people being able to cope with implied threats against their life/physical integrity.

Does that seem right to you?

***

I do notice that no one is suggesting that women in our society are utterly unable to understand what women in other, crueler societies endure.
#226 Caledonian
April 16, 2007

On the other hand, considering Cal’s new friend, I’m reconsidering my turn-down of the “enemy” slot he offered me earlier.

I don’t recall “offering” you anything, nor becoming cmf’s friend. What I do recall is inviting you to hate me intelligently for a change.

You never cease to disappoint me, RavenT.
#227 cmf
April 16, 2007

‘Disapointments are many where the lekking hearts are left bleeding’, begging not the prose nor the wit of the those far less needy;
yet to wit, If I had more time, I would reply, Kseniya, to this and more, but alas in this moment I must skedaddle, fo were it be said in this moment that arose, that I cannot count the flaws in your arguments nor the length till thread close, I promise upon my return a reply fit for an urn, and some humor to humor you, addled but intact as it were’n….
Yeah, you could say that 83.7% of what I said was total bullshit,attempts at humor, etc., but we know the new right/old left people have the humor bone of late guard feminists, and the sensitivity of freshly pulled bilophodontal molars.
I actually do have a sense of humor about it, but try to tell that to those who have no prose, and on Sierra’s issue, a longer nose;-)
[ smiley faces added for humor connotation...yikes]

Yes, you are right Kseniya, it bears a need for a second look. We want to know the answer to the question of “why and what kind of%$#@124^&^ and how they do such things as what was done to Sierra, but no one wants to look at the 2000 lb Dworkinzilla in the center of the argument, which is that it takes one hecj of a mother to raise such woman hatin’t dudes. Can we agree on that?
But I will rteply when time permits, and no, I DO NOT PRESUME this board has anyone with less than top 98pth intelligence level on it–which Is why I was startled to be labeled a troll, as I am RIGHT ON TOPIC,though perhaps ‘pesky’ to those who like homogeneous, nerwspeaking placid discussion; though I clearly disagree with the simplistic thought waves eminating from those I would expect s/th more of, here, I know this is among the most brilliant of blog-boards online.
#228 Chris
April 16, 2007

Caledonian, when a troll like cmf is agreeing with you

Oh, lovely. It’s argumentum ad Hitlerum with a troll taking the place of Hitler. The fact that some moron believes X for bad reasons does not prove X is wrong. Duh. If you want to attack Caledonian, please come up with a better basis than “a troll agrees with you”.

What about dismissing her concerns because they’re really not realistic, proportional, or “a big deal”?

Since that’s not what he did

True – he didn’t dismiss *her* concerns at all. He referred to a climate of fearmongering regarding threats on the internet – the vast majority of which ARE hollow, as we all know quite well – and dismissed “many” of *them*. He did not, at any time or in any way, state that the threats Ms. Sierra received were fake or not credible. “It’s usually sunny around here” is not equivalent to “It is not raining today”, let alone “Anyone who claims it is raining is a liar”. Similarly, “most threats are fake or overstated” does not mean “this particular threat is fake or overstated”.

This is an easy point to miss, of course, which is why I suggested that Kos should have expressed himself more carefully. If he had specifically stated that he wasn’t making any such claim against Ms. Sierra, far fewer people would have jumped to the conclusion that he was (I hope). Which is why I characterize the whole episode as a mistake, not as some kind of act of oppression.
#229 cmf
April 16, 2007

Chris: Which is why I characterize the whole episode as a mistake, not as some kind of act of oppression.
Aptly stated. [Sic] ‘Hi Y’all’
#230 Chet
April 16, 2007

True – he didn’t dismiss *her* concerns at all.

Did we read the same post? Kos argued, essentially: “Sierra’s experience doesn’t mean we need a speech code, because those death threats are usually made up; besides, that’s just the cost of doing business. Tough it out.”

Of course that was the dismissal of her concerns; the blogger speech code under discussion emerged because of the public example of Sierra curtailing her work because of threats received, in the first place. It’s not clear to me why you believe that since you can pull Kos’s statements out into a context where they’re not dismissals, they weren’t dismissals in the original context.

“It’s usually sunny around here” is not equivalent to “It is not raining today”

Not on it’s own. But as a response to someone telling you “man, it’s really coming down out there, maybe we should get some umbrellas”, “but it’s usually so sunny around here” is a dismissal of the first speakers concerns. It means “umbrellas are probably an overreaction, the rain clearly can’t be as bad as you say.”

Which is what nearly everybody understood Kos to be saying. You don’t even have to “read between the lines.” Just read the lines that were written in the context of what was going on.
#231 RavenT
April 16, 2007

Kos argued, essentially: “Sierra’s experience doesn’t mean we need a speech code, because those death threats are usually made up; besides, that’s just the cost of doing business. Tough it out.”

Even more than that, he made a falsifiable, false claim that stalkers don’t act out their threats.

He could have made his points about the blogger code very well without trivializing her experience; that he didn’t–and he didn’t apologize for his mistake when called on it, but just said that the readers are wrong–is his choice. Like Imus, he’s got a track record of this type of thing–once or twice can be a mistake; a repeated pattern of the same type of thing, on the other hand, causes one to wonder how serious he is about addressing his mistake. Of course, he is free to address it or not address it, as he chooses.

And if people choose to turn their support away from him for the choices he makes, well, what’s wrong with that? No one’s entitled to anyone else’s support; if they’re not interested in earning that support through their words and actions, no amount of apologia can change that fact.
#232 Don Price
April 16, 2007

RavenT and Carlie: You’ve both long been two of my favorite commentators on this site. Although I can understand your emotional involvement in this issue, I was disappointed that you both resorted to mudslinging and cheap-shots to try to undermine your opposition on this one. RavenT: You stated that cmf was serving a useful function in “making people uncomfortable”–by which I assume you meant that his drivel might force people to confront their own thinly papered-over ideology. That’s a valid point, but I feel that in your reactions you’ve created the perception that someone was poking uncomfortably close to a papered-over ideology of your own; and just that sort of poking seems to be the major function served by Caledonian on this site. (He reveals his own ideological blind spots on matters pertaining to the role of government and libertarianism, but I digress…)

Anyway… I generally love to read the comments from you two, but keep to the spirit of reasoned debate, eh? I do appreciate everyone who sticks their neck out on here and takes a stand for something!
#233 RavenT
April 16, 2007

That’s a valid point, but I feel that in your reactions you’ve created the perception that someone was poking uncomfortably close to a papered-over ideology of your own

Thanks for the feedback, Don–I’ll take your criticism seriously, and watch to see whether I am protecting something on my own side.

I’ve experienced harassment and a death threat as a woman on the Web–a lot of which is almost, but not quite, as coherent as cmf. So when someone (specifically, not you in your posts, with which I had no issue at all) argues from his ivory tower theory that the experiences of women and men are homogeneous or that it doesn’t matter, that trivialization doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps my reaction is colored by that, although I don’t see where that makes it per se invalid.

But you are right; there’s enough intrinsic merit in my arguments to where I don’t have to take veiled swipes at anyone on top of them–fair enough. I’ll watch out for that in future.
#234 cmf
April 16, 2007

RavenT: When I read whatsisfus love letter to you and Carlie <3<3<3
I saw that he quoted you thus:
"You stated that cmf was serving a useful function in "making people uncomfortable"--by which I assume you meant that his drivel might force people to confront their own thinly papered-over ideology"

I realized that I might have missed s/th in your words, so I re-read them, in your own frame, not his slobbering attempt at a sixth grade s/p friendies letter. I was impressed indeed. Opposition challenges us as writers, and thinkers; propels us into new thinking, new paradigms, dialogue across race class gender, etc....and I was mildly impressed, thought" this dude Ravenet might get it after all"...and then, you opened your face cannon and spewed papfroth at me, and in a veiled way attemted to own my dialogue and turn it into some sort of stab at my vernaculus.

You are equating what I have said with harrassing you? Or that my thinking IS harassment? Is that what is called the argument from female victim stance, equate speech with a claim you are a victim, then bait target[me, your intended target] for excuses to claim victim status? Then, in lieu of ity accuse anyways? Gee whizz, another scandal engineer in the mists...

Yikes. In better more petty days, I would chalk you up as a mere null hypotheses with double nonsense regarding a topic that is itself void, and think to myself "You cunt: not cognate nor one of the good cunts, as in cuneiform and coherent, or cunnus, of the general female sex even, and definitely not as in as Kundalini kun, and too mean and trivial to inhabit the mandarin cun without hesitance on the part of real village feminists. You are just a cunt,( I would think to myself) with a face cannon, pot shotting at me,as if I am a mere part of your battleground gynography and I see you for what you are, you cyber Quimbecile."

But Raven T, I am beyond that,and I would never ever say that in public, or out loud or even with sincerity, as you no doubt are aware yourself,as you have noted quote from RavenT “I don’t have to take veiled swipes at anyone”. after of course, Raven T attempts to throw some bait by accusing me with veiled intent;-) hardees hawhahwhahwaw.

And that is even too much good coin to feed your trollobyting troll behavior. Now go write a post about how your ego was massagynized: I hate to waste good words on bad minds, but I gave ya a biscuit. Now go be nice somewhere would ya? I am tryin real hard to be a good person, just to keep all of you fanghounds at bay, but you just keep nippin me heels!
Now where is my darned gynaesthetic….
#235 RavenT
April 16, 2007

In better more petty days, I would chalk you up as a mere null hypotheses with double nonsense regarding a topic that is itself void, and think to myself “You cunt: not cognate nor one of the good cunts, as in cuneiform and coherent, or cunnus, of the general female sex even, and definitely not as in as Kundalini kun, and too mean and trivial to inhabit the mandarin cun without hesitance on the part of real village feminists. You are just a cunt,( I would think to myself) with a face cannon, pot shotting at me,as if I am a mere part of your battleground gynography and I see you for what you are, you cyber Quimbecile.”

Ok, I just *dare* any guy here to say with a straight face that they get targetted mails like that, much less routinely, from freaky anonymous males.

Hardened bitch that I am, I take constant sand in the gears like that in stride now, but I also double-dog dare any guy here to tell me with a straight face that it wouldn’t grind you down somewhat after a while.
#236 RavenT
April 16, 2007

correction: there are many guys here who I know wouldn’t even dream of trivializing the effect of mails like that from unknown harassers.

I’ll change my dare to “any guy who seriously thinks women’s and men’s experience in cyberspace is homogeneous”, because I wouldn’t want to alienate anyone who doesn’t deserve it.
#237 Don Price
April 16, 2007

RavenT: Touch�…
#238 cmf
April 16, 2007

Kseniya: You wrote”However, you overestimate yourself and underestimate everyone else. This inhibits your ability and willingness to perceive wit, intelligence, subtlety or nuance in the expressions of those with whom you disagree”

Most importantly, (and I don’t want you to have to suffer re-reading this task heavy thread)notice that I never actually ever agreed or disagreed with the main point of whether or not Sierra was actually hair assed, nor did anyone ask me ” what IS you real opinion?”
Sta-range huh? All of those presumptions about my opinion: yaks like Don Ashkenaz and a few others cramming sour yak milk down my gullet, saying I said it so I should eat it, that sort of thing;-) Yikes, sayeth I…..

But what you said was interesting, valid, and likely intended from the depths of your insightful mind. I don’t necessarily disagre on soooooo many points in this discussion, but I do disagree with me being labeled, maligned, threatened, etc; the Sierra crap getting TOOO much free PR without an actual case being filed, and without conviction nor plea; I disagree with the flamers here who cannot get past their early 1990′s “friendship with women= eat feminist rhetoric in short face sitting skat sessions, as often as the girlies diktate you need it,” brainwashing; I disagree with the narrow and restrictive frame that this whole thing has taken, and especially disagree with the sad state of Male ness( like Loch ness) exhibited in these guys eating themselves up like little Dahmers,( Donners;-) ) etc…
But I apreciate your genuine criticism, and will take it to heart, because there is some nuggets in there indeed, and thank you. I wouldn’t be dancing my artistic interpretation of Anna Freud watching her mother undress for the thousanth time as Catherine MacKinnon entes the room and says ” what is that in your hand” and I …..oh I digress in the art of it all…on this thread if I didn’t LOVE the humor here;-)

Doubly, I appreciate you even taking a look at the thesisand the IPT piece that I proposed that women can harm children, and create–not co-create–rape culture.
#239 cmf
April 16, 2007

You said this, FIRST
Raven T said “I’ve experienced harassment and a death threat as a woman on the Web–a lot of which is almost, but not quite, as coherent as cmf.
I double boobiedog any girl out there to say that Raven T ISNT framing me, who never said a word about her directly or even in her ‘veiled way’-framing my moniker next to the words “death threat”
hmmmm…more engineered scandal….and whoever said you own the language of the cun RavenT?

SPOILER ALERT: what follows is the COMPLETE ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD CUN:

http://www.matthewhunt.com/cunt/etymology.html
#240 cmf
April 16, 2007

Sorry if I don’t share your threatening malicious sense of defamation-al framing Ravenet.
#241 RavenT
April 16, 2007

I didn’t say you threatened me; I just said many of the mails I got could only aspire to be as coherent as your comments are, cmf.
#242 j
April 16, 2007

Oh, lovely. It’s argumentum ad Hitlerum with a troll taking the place of Hitler. The fact that some moron believes X for bad reasons does not prove X is wrong. Duh. If you want to attack Caledonian, please come up with a better basis than “a troll agrees with you”.

Chris, that was my attempt to address the troll without feeding it. Obviously, it didn’t work. Which is why I am now discontinuing my troll-feeding.
#243 Carlie
April 16, 2007

I admit that when I’m so boggled by someone’s line of argument (and what I see as a complete disconnect with reality) and find it almost impossible to know where to start, that I do often resort to a more simplistic “idiot” brand of name-calling. It’s so demoralizing to realize that the same bad ideas have to be refuted again, and again, and again, in a “fight the hydra” kind of way, that it’s mentally easier to shut down, but it is laziness on my part not to go after each point individually. That, and not having infinite time. It would be nice to have all such arguments catalogued in a handy fashion to just provide when such things arise.
“I present point #45.”
“It’s been refuted by point #74.”

And so on.
#244 PZ Myers
April 16, 2007

OK, cmf, you are crossing the line. It’s bad enough that you’re flailing around to find an excuse to call women here “cunts”, but you are doing it with near-schizophrenic incoherence. This is not your personal bedlam where you get to rave. Back it off about ten more notches, slow down and write something in sensible English, or say goodbye.
#245 j
April 16, 2007

“near-schizophrenic incoherence”

That’s the descriptor I was looking for. Excellent.
#246 Kseniya
April 16, 2007

CMF:

it takes one heck of a mother to raise such woman hatin’t dudes. Can we agree on that?

For the sake of argument? Ok. For the sake of argument. Though I must go on record as saying “It ain’t nowhere near that simple, Festus.”

Even if we accept that supposition as true, your insistence on dragging it into some kind of time paradox, for the purpose of effectively blaming actual female victims for the hypothetical misdeeds of the mothers of the actual perpetrators, betrays something amiss in your logic or psyche. You’ll never admit that that’s what you’re doing – but you are.

No, this idea does not “threaten” me, but I admit it does disturb me, in a not completely un-visceral way.

The subset of your arguments that I deem relevant to the Sierra topic includes:

1. That “actual or factual violence” against women doesn’t really exist (or is unimportant, or worse, misleading) in the big picture of gender politics.

2. That women are disadvantaged only by the extent of their mothers’ expectations of them.

3. That the criminal acts of rapists, wife-beaters, etc. are born of parenting errors committed by the mothers – by which you unjustifiably reduce the importance of the role of the male parent, and the significance of correlated behavioral modeling, to zero.

4. [...]

There’s more, but I’m out of time. I include item 4 as a way of admitting that it’s not as simple as I have made it out to be so far. But the “so far” borders on the “utterly reprehensible.” Anyway, gotta jet. *poof*
#247 Caledonian
April 16, 2007

(He reveals his own ideological blind spots on matters pertaining to the role of government and libertarianism, but I digress…)

Mr. Price, I would love to hear what blind spots you think I have, but that will have to wait for another thread.
#248 Azkyroth
April 17, 2007

Ok, I just *dare* any guy here to say with a straight face that they get targetted mails like that, much less routinely, from freaky anonymous males.

Hardened bitch that I am, I take constant sand in the gears like that in stride now, but I also double-dog dare any guy here to tell me with a straight face that it wouldn’t grind you down somewhat after a while.

Well, if you restructure the email to replace cunt with “faggot” and various accusations of effeminacy I’ve certainly received commentary like that, albeit not as email within the last several years. I wouldn’t say constantly, though.
#249 Azkyroth
April 17, 2007

CMF, I suppose I owe you an apology. I assumed you to be a troll, merely spewing the most inflammatory, baseless rhetoric you could find, for the sole purpose of annoying people. My faith in humanity refused to admit that anyone could possibly be that stupid and venal.

Well, the troll label is misplaced then; how exactly do you think the sexes should relate, given your apparent position on “feminism” (whatever the hell you’re using that to mean)?

(BTW, I’m a bit confused about something; you condemn the state of maleness (“masculinity”) and complain about sensitive, effeminate guys (I think?) in one breath. And yet, in the next, you’re using “cunt” as a pejorative. Not to imply anything, but it rather sounds as though you don’t really like the female genitalia that much…any comment? )
#250 Kseniya
April 17, 2007

CMF, well I hardly know where to go from here, though I should at least say that I appreciate you recognizing that I have tried to engage you fairly.

Which is not to say that I suddenly agree with everything you’re putting out there. But at some point I decided to try to cut through the chaff, if I could, to see what was really being said, and I think that point was when I realized you had been unfairly slapped down for pointing out a simple fact: that the Duke case hadn’t been getting a lot of play in the blogosphere.

And boy was there was a lot of chaff. You know now that cultivating the appearance of provoking to provoke is a behavior that brings that troll hammer down pretty fast around here. I realize that once you saw it coming, you started encouraging the process so that you could later expose it. I’ll leave any critique of the value and wisdom of that strategy to others. Enough metadiscussion. I’m tired.

No – I’m falling asleep at the keyboard, I am not responsible for my keystrokes, and
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
#251 cmf
April 17, 2007

RE: “one heck of a mother to raise such woman hatin’t dudes. Can we agree on that?” You know what talkin’ about my mother will get you where I come from? Nope. But I will adress you, personally, later, you buttfrothing yak.

The women in my life adore me. My girlfriends(plural) adore me as well. My lovers adore me even more, because of my awareness of the impotence of feminst rhetoric, and feminist sycophants when confronted with facts, not fictions.

My mother rest her soul, was whippin’ her tit out in marketplaces mixin breastfeeding with shopping in 1961, reading mother earth news and teaching me to can vegetables long before you rape culturers were born, or during it

My father was active in civil rights,and was the man who cleaned the room wehere Mark Clark was assasinated, and I worked in same civ rights as well, until I realized that it was largely peopled with hateful white women,cuckolded white men, and whoever they could get to believe their book based rhetoric; who form the last bastion( hopefully) of academic post mad-urn thought.

So to all the haters, and women who still sleep with their mothers out their, piss off, or better yet piss on you, you are all mad, angry rabid little frothies with no actual life experience outside your own mindset.

I pray a short stay in jail, or a night on the ‘wrong’ side of town to all of you to wake you the hell up. In the meantime, I stand exactly where I stood before, and maintain thta women who sleep with their little gilrls too long create this madness in you that is based largley in your own colorless perceptions of yourselves.
#252 cmf
April 17, 2007

PZ: I endeavor, and entreat you to examine the glorious history of the word “cunt” in all of its cognates. Then, maybe you will see its actual meaning, not the one you are brainwashed to see by the inferior feeling, label pasters amongst us. It is a significant word indeed.

But I am evidently too “coherent”, except for the academically unsound minds here on this thread to follow.
Also, a word of warning: pissy label makers SHOULD NOT follow this link, it might educate you. Now, imagine what poor Mathew Hunt was feeling when he did his research?
Enjoy;-)

THE ETYMOLOGY OF CUN
http://www.matthewhunt.com/cunt/etymology.html
#253 cmf
April 17, 2007

KSENIYA: You make sense, I mean that. “provoking to provoke is a behavior that brings that troll hammer down pretty fast around here. I realize that once you saw it coming, you started encouraging the process so that you could later expose it”, except for one minor detail: the speech policing evident here is on a par with the pre fascist and pre National socialist discussions about motherhood previous to ww2, in that for instance, Shicklegruber handed out medals on the sole basis of motherhood, sans politic. In other words, motherhood was enshrined as an act of patriotism, and that which challenged it was suspect, and imprisonable. Gays, Gypsies, etc, were not contributing to the “Fatherlands Maothers”.
Note that one poster is adamant that this correlation not be discussed here, and is co-onstantly sounding the Hitler alert( again, read the nauseous thred yourself). This is an argument by design to avoid drawing the same correlations here before it IS TOO LATE;-)
But otherwise, you should know, I did not set out to INTENTIONALLY go here, but when I was instantly labeled( non motherland friendly) I knew what I was dealling with , and yes, the threat inevitably came, first from you know who, and then, by a woman, playing victim, and trying to bait me first, and then, if she could actually bait actual comments from me( objectified ‘male’ boogieman–notice I have no clear sex or gender in this thread?…hehehehe) enlist male police state aid. Get it?
#254 Scholar
April 17, 2007

“A good enemy is the second-best thing to a good friend. A bad enemy is just annoying.”

I guess Caledonian must have a TON of second-best friends. Maybe he just needs a hug?
#255 cmf
April 17, 2007

I think this thread could use this link, because it is obvious that misandy is appreciated here :

“stabbing men is funny”
http://angryharry.com/esstabbingmenisfunny.htm

Kseniya, thanks again. Her here! Gan Bei! “boy was there was a lot of chaff”….I think it is more aptky “white noise” don’t you think? White people can fill the blogosphere quite rapidly mobilizing around ‘massa ginny’ don’t you think?

I was never looking to comment this long, nor fully discuss the depths of misandry in the blogosphere, but when you say “you had been unfairly slapped down for pointing out a simple fact,” don’t forget that one of those pc cunnus up there used language that inferred desire to do me physical harm, and I thank you for noticing that as well.

( and PZ: is ‘cunt’ a bad thing, REALLY? I would love to hear more on that!)

j: you are near absent in your intellect, and I imagine your home life as well;-)Your ‘near absent’ meaningful input here is ‘near absent’.

Ashkenaz: you write “BTW, I’m a bit confused about something; [] And yet, in the next, you’re using “cunt” as a pejorative. ” Your confusion is something you can take up with your psycho-analytic other;-) But whatever the ‘sense’ you had? way off, but I welcome you to read the definition and etymology posted by Matt Hunt( hehehehe). The pejorative sense of that word came about because late eighties feminists were so busy “owning the sex supply” that they, and thus you, rallied around their use of that word, not the global sense of it. Your loss, not mine. I have been on the global woman tip for years before this debate, with EVEN MORE misandrist p-whipped americans;-)
And:Did you even read my posts or were you merely one of the other adrenalin junkies in for a free ride?

RavenT: thank you, I think, and no thank you at all. I do NOT need feminine approval for my speech conduct. It was your framing of my moniker next to the word death threat, like, that wil live ioon the web.
As In RavenT and scat, or infanticide. Framing, ya know?

Don P. “Douche’ “
#256 RavenT
April 17, 2007

cmf–I did not slur you, and I want you to stop claiming I did right now.

Azkyroth–yeah, it’s *exactly* the same thing, isn’t it?

PZ–ok, whether or not the denialists have, I’ve had enough object lesson. If you are ready to ban or disemvowel cmf, I won’t object again.
#257 Carlie
April 17, 2007

Wow, cmf is still here? And still spouting? I think disemvoweling would make his statements make more sense, to be honest.
#258 cmf
April 17, 2007

Rvn, srry t cnfrnt yr fml prvldg. spps t s crryvr frm wht wmn nttlmnt. nd frnkly, yr cnstnt bltng bt y ddn’t slndr m s bs, nd y knw t. Frmng sxxxx, dn’t t?
Y dn’t knw m, dn’t knw y, bt cnsdrng tht PZ, t l r mr thn wllng t ndlg y th fml prvldg f lstnng t y r: “dsmvwlng m,” nsst tht y tk xctly wht y dsr. wll g nd clnscpz NT….f y wnt my rs y cn hv t n xctly th cndtn y dsr t;-)
dn’t nd dfns,tht xct prvldg mks m qstn tht y r nv t sng my mnkr nd frmd t th wy y dd, s wll ssm t ws hmrs, nd mv n.
p.s. thnk y hv nt rnd th ttl “bjct” hr, tht wld b mn: r-rd th thrd, nd y wll s hw mny tms y r nyn ls frmd m s “bjct”, nd ctd ccrdngly. Y wr hr fr wht? Thr qps?

[cmf, you're done]
#259 RavenT
April 17, 2007

also, guys–I could use a little support here, as this has gotten too creepy for me.
#260 RavenT
April 17, 2007

thanks, PZ.
#261 cmf
April 17, 2007

NT TH SM THNG
Th nw wv f wb cnsrs lks lt lk th ld wv f cnsrshp prds, wh frst prcv n thr wn mnds s/th s bscn,ftr f crs vwng t, prtkng f t, tc., nd thn g bt chrgng thrs wth bscnty wh hv nvr ndlgd. cld cr lss, nd vn lssr fr yr cmmnts, nd ddn’t nvt y t mn.
BT:
“Whtvr d s dn t f shr jy; drp my frts lk rp tr. Wht th gnrl rdr r th crtc mks f thm s nt my cncrn.”
Hnry Mllr
#262 cmf
April 17, 2007

hhwhhwhhw…;-)
#263 cmf
April 17, 2007

h!! s, y r ncrgng m nt nthr thrd!!k….;-)
#264 skinfixxix
April 18, 2007

ntrstng thrd cnt. r ths stnd r nstnd mtl shts?
#265 newKosfan
April 18, 2007

rlly lk th fct tht Ks s nt cnsrshp mndd pst Vctrn ppsr>;-) cn’t wt t prmt hm;-)
#266 austingrrrrl
April 18, 2007

hrd bt ths thrd th cmf. Glly g, fnnsm s dsprt. Hv y bcm jst pst fmnst shll? rmmbr rdng y t MCTC nd thnkng y wr rdcl. Gld grw p:-0

[skinfixxix, newKosfan, and austingrrrrl are all pseudonyms for cmf. Trolls can be so stupid; don't they know I have access to all kinds of info about who is posting here? Sockpuppetry is so pathetic. --pzm]
#267 Kseniya
April 18, 2007

Hmm, and I thought the thread was dead. Guess not. It sure did spin out of control, though. Is it wrong to seek to understand these things?

This was one of the strangest experiences I’ve had on the web.

I feel really weird now.
#268 prismatic, so prismatic
April 18, 2007

It certainly doesn’t seem wrong to seek to understand the relevant issues–which, as I recall many comments ago, had something to do with the best way to grapple with various events surrounding Kathy Sierra’s blog, and Kos’ reactions to them. It was helpful to read some of the arguments against my take on those things, even when I didn’t agree–that sort of thing sharpens the mind, if nothing else.

But now that the thread has devolved into name-calling (really? the C word? we can cite etymologies all we want, but come on, folks, by that point we were well into the zone where egregious behavior could have been more vigorously shouted down), airing out of way more (presumably unconsciously revealed) personal baggage than I need to see, and now sock puppetry, it seems like it has long since ceased to shed more light than heat. RavenT is right–it’s just creepy now, with a capital CR.

–pr
#269 PZ Myers
April 18, 2007

This character cmf has been officially plonked.
#270 Elijah
May 17, 2009

LMAO Im bored and at work, thought i would read into your dungeon list a bit. Im glad all the comments are kept on these posts, as it was fun to read the conversation. Still, got a bit messy at the end….never seen a disemvoweling before….completely lacking in rue. You know, “ruthless”? I think thats where the word comes from. He definitely deserved it, but boy was it sad to see.