First off, a disclaimer. I am female. I was born that way. Yet, I am not prone to painting my face or fingernails and have little use for fashion. As a self professed tomboy, even though I was born in 1949 and spent my early childhood in the conformity zone of the 1950s, my existence was not curtailed or constrained by the prevailing mores of the times. Not that my mother didn't try, but despite her best efforts to compel me to act like a "young lady", my father's belief in me as a human being who could do anything, anything at all, without limits, prevailed and grew in me as time passed. It is to him that I owe my stubborn refusal to sit in the back of the bus, as it were. Along with teaching me to read and print before I got to school-age, he also taught me that I was as good, and as worthy, as any man.
Now, for those wondering about that bit of personal disclosure, it seems like the right prelude to what comes next. After the recent storm of criticism hurled at the Burd Report, and at me in particular, my perception of being picked on for the crime of being female can be ignored no longer. Searching online for sexism in the blogging world, the first thing I learned was that this phenomenom is quite real, it is not just a product of my imagination. Other women bloggers have encountered it too, and a series on that topic was recently written in England by Helen Lewis Hasteley in the New Statesman. Titled "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online" it was posted on November 3, 2011. Here's what my new pal had to say:
"The sheer volume of sexist abuse thrown at female bloggers is the internet's festering sore: if you talk to any woman who writes online, the chances are she will instantly be able to reel off a greatest hits of insults. But it's very rarely spoken about, for both sound and unsound reasons. No one likes to look like a whiner — particularly a woman writing in male-dominated fields such as politics, economics or computer games. Others are reluctant to give trolls the "satisfaction" of knowing they're emotionally affected by the abuse or are afraid of incurring more by speaking out".
That's just an excerpt, but you get the drift, and I repeat it here because it reflects my own feelings so well. This post has been percolating in my head for over a year now, but it has remained unwritten for the same reasons Ms. Lewis Hasteley listed. I know full well a heap of abuse will fall on my head as soon as this is published, and I can even predict what form that abuse will take. Frankly, I am tired of it. Criticism of the content of a post is one thing, and anybody who blogs knows to expect it. But criticism that's personal, that has no basis in logic or reason and serves no purpose other than belittling the writer, is another. I'm tired of excusing it, tired of trying to figure out how on earth I've offended the commenter, tired of apologising for my crime in being a thinking, functioning female; I'm just plain fed up.
It seems to me that my generation is filled with males whose self esteem seems to depend on feeling superior to women. Further, like so many other women, I am just not willing to defer to these men in order to shore up their insecurities. As a female my brain is just as sharp, just as good as any man's, my opinions just as valid. So these insecure little boys can take a hike, the insults and put-downs will not scare me away, not stop me from writing, no matter what. Like it or lump it, we females are not going away. We are taking our place beside men as fully functioning human beings, with just as much strength and courage. And guys, if this post makes you furious, that's a pretty good indication you may be one of the boys with a problem.
who said what