In the Blog
Online Harassment
There’s an interesting piece in The Guardian about sexist harassment online, especially as experienced by female bloggers. (It’s also by the editor of Feministing, which we link to regularly.)
I was reminded of the hate mail that I get for a site I built, about ad trucks. I put it up when I was probably seventeen, and unfortunately haven’t updated it much since. But instead of disappearing into internet obscurity, the site has steadily climbed Google rankings. One side of this is that I’ve gotten some interesting feedback, from people around the world who are writing and campaigning against mobile advertising. But the cool email has been overwhelmed by strangely intense hate mail.
I didn’t think ad trucks had many supporters. But somehow every couple months, someone finds the time to tell me that I run the stupidest website they’ve ever found; that I need to get a job; that I’m ruining the economy; that I’m a hippie; that I must be a Democrat. The sheer rage behind most of the messages scares me a little.
After reading this article, I’m wondering where the insults would go if it was obvious from the site that I was a woman.
