On Being a Woman on the Internet

[clovehitched]

In 2008, I happened to be walking near Cambridge railway station and encountered a van driver blocking the road, causing massive tailbacks. For those who know Cambridge, you'll realise when I say that she made the traffic back up to Hills Road that she was effectively managing to paralyse a large chunk of the city.

Anyway, at the time I videoed what was happening on my cheap and cheerful Nokia smartphone (this was before I made the jump to using iPhones) and posted it to YouTube. The video can be found here. The description text that goes with it reads:

The lady driving this van had decided to park in the middle of the road outside Cambridge station, in rush hour, blocking a bus, which in turn blocked all the traffic behind it, which in turn caused it to back up all the way to the main arterial route out of the city to the south. When I started filming, several people had come to remonstrate with her and all she did was move a couple of metres forward each time, which was no use at all. This continued for a few minutes after I stopped filming.

The video must have become associated with some other popular videos because over the years since i filmed it, over 21,000 people have seen the clip and it appears to be quite highly rated. I get a regular trickle of comments on it.

If you go to the video's page and read the comments, you won't see many of them. This is because I am forced to delete them. Despite it being obvious with a moment's glance that I, the video submitter, am female, lots of the comments I get are horrifically misogynistic, some going as far as to contain graphic descriptions of sexual and other violence. They started off as a slow trickle, but have increased over the years. Now I get one every few days, and have moved from being mildly offensive (I left some of those up) to being thoroughly nasty. They're getting worse, and a few weeks ago I left a comment myself saying that misogynistic comments will be deleted.

It didn't make any difference. The problem has continued getting worse, to the point where I am starting to think I may have to take the video down.

Here are some of the comments I have deleted.

"tut woman drivers, am messin am not sexist lol shes just not a full shilling" - 10 May, 2009

"i cant belive he dint get out n knock er fronts out silly cunt" - 1 May, 2010

"In the descrition... "The lady driving..." I see the issue." - 2 December, 2010

"Why didn't you knock on her window and call her a fat slag?" - 28 January, 2011

"voting was the first mistake. allowing for licenses was the second." - 11 July, 2011

"Dumb cunt!" - 15 July, 2011

"had to be female!" - 6 August 2011

"Woman driver. Say no more." - 6 August, 2011

"if i was there i would smash her face in and rape her :-)" - 10 August, 2011

"YOU DUMB BITCH" - 12 August, 2011

"Clueless woman, an embaressment to woman. She had no idea of what she was doing or causing. Take the tits licence of her." - 15 August, 2011

"stupid bitch" - 19 August, 2011 (today)

For me, the worst and most personally shocking one is the one with the smiley face, proclaiming that the poster would "smash her face in and rape her" *SMILE*

As you can see, they're now coming in at the rate of one every couple of days, and if anything they are getting nastier.

I have heard that many women on the Internet pretend to be men. Go figure.

Also posted at http://auntysarah.dreamwidth.org/252209.html - you can comment here or there.

Comments

[bionicgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

urgh, horrid, why not just disable comments rather than take the video down?

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea. I just switched to moderated comments - let's see what happens there.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

It has a lot to do with the Patriarchy feeding the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Arcade_%28webcomic%29#John_Gabriel.27s_.22Greater_Internet_Fuckwad_Theory.22). Otherwise powerless little boys get their jollies pretending to be what they think "Real Men" are. When they don't get immediately slapped down for their misogyny, they feel a phantom approval and do it again. Each time they get away with something outrageous without punishment they feel emboldened and worsten their behaviour until a situation like the one you're describing (or worse) arises.

[celesteh.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you, but I'm wondering how you account for things getting worse over the years? Just people have more experience on the internet? I think culture might be changing. There seem to be a lot more sexist jokes about. The make-me-a-sandwich meme springs to mind.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think culture is changing due to the very fact that misogyny is being rewarded rather than being punished.

Once they start pushing against extremes and don't get slapped down, the boundaries start falling and what used to be outrageous is now normal.

[tartful-dodger.livejournal.com]

I think there's a shift away from manners generally, and while sexism and misogyny aren't new things I do think that its evolved from patronising endearment to out and out hostility. I think its sort of a backlash of disenfranchised and pathetic guys who no longer have the smugness that comes from a better education or the power of financial domination over women.

[naath.livejournal.com]

More people making their way onto the internet maybe?

[varioussorrows.livejournal.com]

And some claim that misogyny is non-existent. I've noticed before that on the internet, sexual assault seems to be regarded as a suitable 'punishment' for women making a mistake. Although the men making those comments might not say it 'in real life', they obviously still think it.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I was having a very interesting discussion with an academic the other day about feminism per se, and ze pointed out that while the concept of feminism - loosely speaking, that everyone deserves the same human rights - has permeated our culture, in fact the behaviour that would back it up has not happened. So we have this situation where a woman says, "I deserve to be treated with basic decency." and people (not just men) say "Oh god are you on about that again? That's so old-school feminist." and then feel they've done their bit and can ignore her.

[emperor]

Yuck :(

[techiebabe.livejournal.com]

Ew. Sadly I am not surprised. It's not only easy to comment on the internet but it's easy to be stupid and comment on the internet.

[andustar.livejournal.com]

Women, driving? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC5aGCOT6bs)

(the comments, obviously, are best left unread).

[alicephilippa.livejournal.com]

This does not surprise me. Horrifies me but does not surprise me.

There seems to be this assumption that a male driver wouldn't block a road like that. Thankfully this is not the case. Delivery drivers of any gender are all as bad as each other.

Driving is sadly equated with sexuality in weird entanglements.

[capybyra.livejournal.com]

J.G. Ballard's "Crash" comes to mind too. I feel my faith in humanity fucking *DIE* when I read comments like the blatant expression of intent to rape. Would that we had means and guts to trace such cretins for holding them accountable? I'd certainly hold such a statement as anything but protected speech! Arguably- it's proof of a sociopath level malfunction. The incivility alone would warrant comment moderation, if not perhaps a chat with psych investigators in the case of our declared wannabe rapist. Damn, an incident of someone having a bad driving day being used to justify criminal acts just- is sheer FAIL.

My consolation is hoping such commentators are too loathsome to breed.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Wonder what such arsewipes make of those of us of the female persuasion known to ride big bikes? :o/

[aumentou.livejournal.com]

Hypothesis for the escalation: dominance contest enacted through increasing hostility. Each comment must escalate from previous misogynistic comments, because if the new is not more extreme than the average, how can the writer imagine he has made an impression?

I think that a lot of male anger towards women is down to an inaccurate perception of a power imbalance against them. Most of them are het. They want womens bodies, because a) inclination and b) they've been told womens bodies are nice. They've been taught their own bodies are repulsive. Result, they believe that sexual relationships are inherently imbalanced against them.
If that's true, one implication would be that most men are also a) bad at logic (or they'd see the flaws there), b) bad at understanding their own emotions (or they'd realise they're angry and try to work out why), and c) slightly out of control. A disturbing thought to me, but it all seems to fit. Then again, I do have a predisposition to accept depressing theories.

Of course, there are alternative hypothesis available. Perhaps a link to the video has been put on some unpleasant male supremacy site, or something?

Either way, if it were me, I think I'd just remove the video.