It’s a Scary Time to Be a Feminist on Tumblr
In the past 2 days…
First there was this: a girl punched a man in the face when she overheard him threaten to rape a woman. She wrote about it on tumblr, and instead of accolades for saving the day, she received over 34,000 rape threats herself on her tumblr page, with comments like “you’re the one who deserves to get raped” and “I’m going to rape you”. She finally had to take her tumblr down.
Then there was this: a woman wrote on her tumblr page that Daniel Tosh of Tosh.0 told her she should be gang raped “right now” after she heckled him at a comedy show for making a rape joke. He since apologized, and as far as I know she hasn’t received rape or death threats, but her tumblr did get some critical comments calling her an “entitled moron”, ‘idiot”, “asshole”, “dickhead”, “vindictive”, and a “bitch”.
Then there was this: Sex educator Laci Green operates a tumblr page and youtube channel with posts and videos about sex-positivity and social justice… kinda like me :) She’s frankly pretty awesome and a true ally to the sexually marginalized. But then someone called her out on a post she made years ago when she was 18 because she used the word “tranny”. She responded with apologizing for her former youthful ignorance, stating she has since learned how the word is used to oppress and hurt transpeople and that if she realized that post was still up she would have taken it down. Her mistake. Sounds reasonable, right? Apparently wrong. She has received thousands of death threats and ugly messages like “I’m happy you are finally getting all the hate you deserve you stupid transphobic cunt. Who the fuck do you think you are insulting Islam? Your fucking right you made a mistake, and now you will pay for it. I know you live at _________ and I will personally smash your stupid fucking face in if I ever see you in person” with and attached photo of her apartment building proving that individual does indeed know where she lives. Laci also had to remove her tumblr.
They all upset me, but the last one in particular really does because while hideous, the level of misogyny in the two first incidences don’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that someone who has been such a passionate advocate for transpeople could be thrown under the bus so quickly. I can’t imagine taking a well-known male feminist who is educating tens of thousands of people about women’s issues and threatening to kill him because he said the word “bitch” when he was a teenager. It’s just so counter productive! Social justice is in part about helping people grow to be open-minded. We WANT people to grow. If they grow and we still punish them for something they said before they were enlightened, then their growth doesn’t really matter so what’s the point? It’s absurd.
It’s a scary time to be a feminist on tumblr. I could be “too feminist” and set off the misogynists who will inundate me with thousands of rape threats. Or I could be “not feminist enough” and set off my allies who will inundate me with thousands of death threats. Awesome.
Contact sexologist Jill McDevitt:
jill@thesexologist.org
