gisw13_chapters

united statesThe flame war on womenAssociation for Progressive Communications (APC)and May First/People LinkMallory Knodel and Alfredo Lópezwww.apc.org and mayfirst.orgIntroductionThe case of Adria RichardsObsessive public debate over women’s bodies,behaviours and careers is nothing new in the US,though increasingly we see them spark in onlinespaces, ignite with social media and then burn upand out with the help of mass media.This story is about sexism, racism, techieculture, corporate “hide-from-accountability” amoralityand the lack of job protection that jostles theground under most techies’ feet. Adria Richards isa prominent writer and consultant who was in attendanceat the 2013 PyCon (Python Conference) onbehalf of her employer SendGrid, an email serviceprovider. During a plenary session, Richards overheardwhat she thought were sexual jokes beingmade by two men sitting behind her. 1The jokes sounded offensively sexual to Richards,so she took their picture and posted it onTwitter with a tweet asking that something bedone about their offensive behaviour. Conferenceofficials were on the scene immediately. At theirrequest, she pointed the men out to them and theconference organisers quietly asked them, one byone, to come out to the hallway for a chat.One of the men, who worked for a game marketingcompany called PlayHaven, was fired soonafter the conference. Criticism of Richards explodedonline. Richards’ website was hacked,the SendGrid website was hacked (allegedly byactivists from Anonymous) and Richards receivedseveral death threats (one accompanied by agrotesque tweet with a picture of a decapitatedwoman on a bed).The surge of public debate about whether ornot Richards’ “public shaming” of the men was warrantedled to an announcement by SendGrid thatRichards had herself been fired.1 butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belongat-tech-conferencesSarah Milstein, a speaker, writer and consultantspecialising in social media, put the reactions intoperspective very well:I find it more than a bit damning of the tech sectorand SendGrid that PlayHaven and PyCon,two of the several players in this episode withconsiderable power, acted with great respectability,and yet Adria – a player without muchpower – was attacked at a level we don’t see often,with intent to harm and silence her. 2BlowbackOf course, no one should have a lost a job as a resultof this. Men learning lessons about their sexistbehaviour is a central part of the struggle againstsexism. But if that man is fired, how is he going toapply the newly learned lesson? And if you fire thewoman for offering the lesson, who will give the nextlesson?Beyond the unfortunate response by SendGrid,Adria Richards’ story is part of a larger, growingtrend in online spaces. Incidents of violence againstwomen online are on the rise in the US for severalreasons. 3 More women are online than ever before. 4Misogynistic hate speech is a deliberate tactic usedto exclude women from public spaces, which includesonline spaces.Groups in the US that seek to exclude and silencewomen in online (and offline) spaces areoften self-proclaimed men’s rights groups. 5 Theiraims are certainly reactionary and are one manifestationof a severe backlash against women’s humanrights the world over. These US-based men’s rightsgroups are, like their counterparts overseas, oftenreligiously fundamentalist, though not always.The severity of online trolling has caused severaljournalists to reduce or stop publishing online. 6It is not just trolling. Kathy Sierra, a popular webdeveloper, author and blogger, went into hidingafter receiving gruesome threats online. Rape and2 www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html3 www.genderit.org/node/37534 www.genderit.org/node/37485 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men’s_rights_movement6 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/women-bloggershateful-trolling231 / Global Information Society Watch