

Men Are Harassed More Than Women Online - yuashizuki
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/04/men-are-harassed-more-than-women-online.html

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paulhauggis
I've been saying this for a long time. Women are not actually being singled
out, they are now equal with men. But for some reason, they feel they should
have special treatment. We need to find ways of combating all harassment..not
just for women.

About 10 years ago, I had a programming blog that talked about topics such as
Mysql VS Postgres and other topics I was interested in discussing. I got death
threats, harassed, and emails telling me some of the worst things in the world
(including the rape of me and my family members). I never really took it
seriously, but it still happened on a constant basis.

~~~
cbsmith
> I've been saying this for a long time. I'm sure you have, as have many
> others. What is less clear is how founded this perception is.

> About 10 years ago, I had a programming blog that talked about topics such
> as Mysql VS Postgres and other topics I was interested in discussing. I got
> death threats, harassed, and emails telling me some of the worst things in
> the world (including the rape of me and my family members). I never really
> took it seriously, but it still happened on a constant basis.

There's no question that trolling happens to everyone, and trolls can often
strike without the foggiest clue about someone's gender. It's not like the Y
chromosome gets you a free pass.

However, did you, for comparison, try setting up a similar blog, masquerading
as a woman, in order to compare the experience? While this study didn't find
it, I believe the evidence from other studies has pretty regularly found that
at the very least women get more vicious attacks and are more likely to be
stalked. Sentiment analysis on very large datasets has been pretty conclusive
in this regard.

It could be there was something critically different about this study that
was, until now, ignored, but I don't see much reason for it to be an outlier
beyond that it is so narrowly targeted (small sample population, UK only,
etc.), or reason to think your perspective is more well informed than anyone
else's.

~~~
paulhauggis
"However, did you, for comparison, try setting up a similar blog, masquerading
as a woman, in order to compare the experience? While this study didn't find
it, I believe the evidence from other studies has pretty regularly found that
at the very least women get more vicious attacks and are more likely to be
stalked. Sentiment analysis on very large datasets has been pretty conclusive
in this regard."

So if a women gets 10 threatening messages and I get 8, does it really matter?
Who cares who gets more threats..threats are threats and they need to stop.

"It could be there was something critically different about this study that
was, until now, ignored, but I don't see much reason for it to be an outlier
beyond that it is so narrowly targeted (small sample population, UK only,
etc.), or reason to think your perspective is more well informed than anyone
else's."

The same thing happens on other Internet forums and on social media. If you
have any kind of opinion that someone doesn't like, you will get threats. Even
more so on Twitter where it's really easy to fire off a shitty @ reply.

If I was a woman, I don't think you would be trying to explain away my
personal experiences. This is what I'm talking about.

~~~
cbsmith
> So if a women gets 10 threatening messages and I get 8, does it really
> matter?

I think you are minimizing the differences, and of course, there can be
differences in credibility of threats as well.

> Who cares who gets more threats..threats are threats and they need to stop.

Absolutely.

> If I was a woman, I don't think you would be trying to explain away my
> personal experiences. This is what I'm talking about.

I'm not trying to explain your personal experiences away. However, I think you
are mistaken about what the experience is for women. Mansplaining wasn't made
up for no reason.

------
adsche
A Very Small Sample of Selected (Celebrity/Public) British Men are harassed
more than Selected (Celebrity/Public) British Women.

Watch #gamergate on twitter for just a minute and you'll get the opposite
impression. By far.

*Edited to emphasize the celebrity/public status, as I think that might attract harassing a bit.

~~~
sp332
I was wondering how this study got this result, since other studies have come
up with very different numbers.

~~~
adsche
Yup, they even mention other studies in the article but could obviously not
find one to support their headline. So they write stuff like:

    
    
        While Hess’s Pacific Standard article drew on that
        survey to note that “5 percent of women who used the
        Internet said ‘something happened online’ that led them 
        into ‘physical danger,’” it made no mention of the fact 
        that 3 percent of the men also reported such an experience.

------
mcv
It's worth noting that the article is generalizing from a very limited study
among British celebrities and journalists. It's entirely possible that abuse
and threats happen differently in different countries, and you certainly can't
assume that celebrities are treated the same as non-famous people.
Furthermore, the article explicitly mentions that their sample size was so
small that classifying a single famous, controversial journalist as either
celebrity or journalist had a dramatic impact on the results.

What also matters is the nature of the abuse. Is the abuse aimed at men just
as sexual/rape oriented as that aimed at women? It doesn't say.

All in all, my impression is that the article selects and presents the data in
a way convenient for the point it's trying to make.

(That doesn't change the fact that of course all harassment and threats are
bad, and they all need to be fought.)

------
tbrownaw
Well, yeah. As much as anonymity is necessary for political dissent,
whistleblowing, etc, it does come with the cost that it promotes
douchebaggery. Which means the internet is hostile to everyone.

