girls gone ugly

Last Thursday, writer, sex educator, lecturer and all around techno-diva Violet Blue wrote an entry for her column “Open Source Sex” published weekly in the San Francisco Gate. This piece, entitled “Ugly Violet: Every girl online is ugly, fat and unsexy. Here’s how to get over it,” centered on the web phenomenon of trolls who use blog comments to denigrate a woman specifically for her looks and sexual orientation or proclivities.

Violet Blue writes:

[E]very woman on the Internet gets called slutty and ugly and fat (to put it lightly) no matter what; all we have to be is female. In dinner conversation, my friend Lori reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote, "Give a man a mask, and he'll tell you the truth." I restated it for the Internet, replying, "Give a man a mask, and he'll slit your throat." The application here is, "Give a man (or a woman) an anonymous account, and he'll eviscerate your self-esteem."

Certainly Ms Blue has a point. Commenters have gone out of their way to call, for example, me not only ugly, slutty and fat, but also talentless, chunky, lame, stupid, crazy, narcissistic, lazy, immoral, a whore and a loser. I don’t know a female blogger who hasn’t gotten that kind of fetid salmagundi slung in her general direction. On the other hand, I don’t know of a single male blogger who has experienced anything similar. Perhaps men are reluctant to talk about it when, rather than the sticks and the stones, the words have hurt them. But I’m inclined to think that it just doesn’t happen as often to men.

A few facile reasons spring to mind to explain why female bloggers are targeted far more frequently than their male counterparts. Certainly, calling a man “fat, ugly and unsexy” simply doesn’t hold the same kind of emotional weight. Men, as the burlesque performer Bombshell Betty posits in Ms Blue’s column, “tend to be seen in more of a gestalt fashion: People look at the whole package — including personality.” Men can enjoy a wide latitude of attractiveness. Women consider a wide spectrum of men to be sexy; men from actor Dennis Frantz to philosopher Jacques Derrida to rocker Pete Doherty to mogul Steven Jobs to convicted serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer have wide legions of women who find them sexy. Women, however, don’t seem to enjoy that kind of flexible sexiness in the eyes of men, at least not publicly.

So calling a man “fat, ugly and unsexy” is far more easily dismissed because men have a lot more to go for them attractive-wise than just their looks. Plus there’s the fact that men have a more fertile basis for their self-worth than merely their looks or attractiveness. Women, not so much. One needs only to look at the epithets thrown at Hilary Clinton in her presidential campaign. No one has ever considered a man too ugly to elect. Think of Nixon, or Taft, or Cleveland. Not lookers, they. And while, sure, it’s nice to have a pretty president (JFK, for example), it has never been a prerequisite. Men simply get to base their feelings of self-worth on a broader pedestal than women.

Looks-based insults pack a broader whallop when they’re aimed at women. And certainly, one could argue, as many people have done, that a strong, assertive, articulate woman poses a greater threat to dominant culture than a strong, assertive, articulate man, and that is why women bloggers garner the lion’s share of trolls. We just make people feel more uneasy more easily; when people feel uneasy, they lash out, usually in the most simplistic, schoolyard manner possible.

None of this analysis is news. None of it is saying anything radical or wildly speculative. So let me then take the moment to interject a bit of the new. Inherent in Ms Blue’s column is the assumption that the trolls who target female bloggers are male. In the excerpt I quoted above, while Ms Blue does parenthetically grant the possibility that trolls can be females, dominant pronoun in the major clause in the sentence suggests that they aren’t. This assumption, sadly, is nothing new in the writing of Violet Blue.

Ms Blue, for whose work I do have the deepest respect—it takes tremendous courage to be out and about and unfailingly honest as she is in her writing, has a blind spot when it comes to women harassing other women. In the piece titled “When A Man Hates A Woman: The ugly side of sex and the Web” also from Ms Blue’s column in the SF Gate, published on March 29, 2007, she writes about a friend, another female tech blogger, who was targeted by a hate site where “the tone and content of the hate site centers around sexually threatening [her], suggesting ways  [she] could be killed and have [her] corpse defiled, stating that [she is]  a "slut" and that [her] gender is also in question.” Unquestionably, Ms Blue’s friend had a horrendous experience that was compounded by an article in the NY Times that took a risible look at the whole situation. The woman in question deserves support from everyone—not just female tech bloggers like Ms Blue.

But my problem with this piece is the insinuation that the title makes: that only men attack female bloggers, an idea that Ms Blue’s most recent piece continues to make. I know from my own experience that this simply isn’t the case. We women know what wounds, and we too can be trolls. I’ve had many trolls. At least three of them I know to be women, either because they outed themselves or because I discovered the true identity behind the masculine or gender-neuter screen-name. Certainly, my experience isn’t singular. You only need to look at the story of Megan Meier, the thirteen year-old girl who killed herself after being cyberstalked by a former friend’s mother posing as a teenage boy. Women harass women online. All the time. It’s sad, really.

At the end of the day, we women owe it to each other to be a little bit nicer to each other. At the end of the day, when Ms Blue, who in response to being called “fat, ugly and unsexy” herself, asks the rhetorical question, “would political sex and culture commentary from someone who looks like Pamela Anderson actually be taken seriously?” I have to answer, yes, it should be, if it’s astute, well thought-out, and articulate commentary. What I mean to say is that it shouldn’t matter what a female writer, banker, lawyer, sanitation worker, firefighter, cattle rancher, engineer or advertising executive looks like—at least not any more than it matters what their male counterparts look like.

Yes, there are professions where looks matter—modeling, acting, maybe newscasting. But especially when the profession in question is writing, looks—weight, attractiveness, relative sexiness—absolutely don’t matter. Moreover, it’s not fair to attack anyone based on her or his looks, sexuality, or gender. It’s just dumb, cruel, and  mean—and ultimately it reflects far more on the character of the attacker than on attractiveness of the attacked. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

Here’s what I’m suggesting: we women need to look out for one another because we owe it to one another to do so. It's not easy to be a chick, and we need to make it easier for each other. There's no reason to be our own worst enemies. I’m not saying that men have an implicit get out of jail free card for bad behavior, but I am calling for women to take the time to treat one another more thoughtfully.

What you say gets heard. Often by other women. Take a moment before you call another woman a slut. Consider whether castigating another woman for her looks is the moral thing to do—even if it’s a woman like a celebrity who will never hear you. Pause and think a moment before you wholesale buy into the looks-based economy of women. And for the love of all things holy and female, don’t be a troll. You’re better than that. We all are.

I end this rant with a clip of one of my female heroes, Tina Fey, in Mean Girls. Remember the part when her character, Ms Norbury, says, “Ok, so we're all here 'cause of this book, right? Well, I don't know who wrote this book, but you all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores. Who here has ever been called a slut?”

To answer Ms Norbury's query, I've been called a slut. And in the distant past, I’ve called other women sluts. I’m not every going to do it again. Neither should you. While you're at it, add "fat," "ugly" and "unsexy" too. I'm going to.

Comments

[Amanda]

That's so true- in the one instance where I've been hit by a troll, it turned out to be a woman, once I compared IP addresses with recent comments. To make matters worse, it wasn't an anonymous, unseen woman, but someone I do actually know quite well, both online and offline. I just don't understand why women set about constantly cutting each other down, particularly online, when if you don't agree with something, or don't like someone, it's easy enough to just shut down the screen and walk away- why do things that the trolls must know are going to cause hurt and anguish?

[six]

(Speaking from a male perspective, I feel alien, awkward, and out of place.)

Insults hurt the most when they're half-true. When they've lodged themselves in the corner of doubt and self-disregard, clinging onto the smallest bit of honesty, coated with malice. So yes, when a woman calls another woman a "slut," or any of the aforementioned negative words, it's a deeper cut than if a man says it. A man does not think of himself a slut in the same way that a woman may worry she is. A man does not stand in front of a mirror and question if he is fat, in the same way a woman may worry she is.

I, too, read Violet Blue's articles, and did notice the (what I believe to be inadvertent) male-oriented-spin on it, and it did bother me too. In some ways, I believe it's easier to identify conflicts between unlike groups (in this case it's gender) - the opposite of course, is conflict within the group.

I know I've seen the movie too, and I believe one of the lines resembled something like "Let's end girl-on-girl hate." It resonates (as it is supposed to) with the 1990's catch-phrase, "black-on-black crime." It hurts. It's internal. And there's no reason for it to continue and propagate.

Respect is a precious commodity in scarce supply in today's disposable world, and this is just another facet of its dearth.

A slut, CG, you are anything but.

Yours,
.6

[Mishi]

Dear Chelsea,
Everyone that I've directed to your blog has nothing but praise for your writing. After finally reading "T" is for "Teaze", and your latest entry, may I suggest using this site for your own protection - www.hitslink.com

It records most of the details about your viewers including their ISP and IP address as well as their general location or the location of their server.

I don't always agree with everything you write, but I respect the fact that its your life. No one has the right to judge you for your choices.

[Anastasia]

From my personal experience, I've found women to be more damaging, for the reasons that you've mentioned; women know what makes other women tick, and I think when women make petty comments, they sink really low. I haven't experienced a lot of that online, for me it's the opposite. I have experienced it more in the workplace, and the comments all based on superficial things, and absurdly enough, those things, depending on how they are used, can damage a person's credibility. I have been off work, on stress leave, for the last three months because of things that female superiors and associates would do or say. The most recent thing, something that I would have never expected at my age, was to be seated in the park on a work break, and had my legs cross, for two female co-workers to walk past and tell me in passing that I looked like a hooker the way I was seated, just because I had one leg cross over the other. Mind you, I was wearing pants.

I don't know what is more damaging. Comments from women or men. Maybe it is more hurtful from women because of the associations that are out there, of women being intrinsically nurturing, and all that stuff, so when men say things, it can easily be separated or summed up as 'he's just being an asshole,' or 'he's a man, he's wired differently,' but when women say things, it somehow has a heavier impact. As a result of my recent experiences away from the Internet, I can't say that I'm thrilled with the idea of high powered women in the workplace, and have no desire to work beneath one ever again. I read a newspaper article discussing the difference between female and male bosses, and where I am, there is a tendency for females to be more aggressive, even more so than men, but the aggression is different. It's personal (looks, personal backgrounds, sexuality) and cruel. Now that doesn't have to be true for every city around the world, but somewhere along the way, the definition of assertiveness has been warped by the few.

[Griphus]

I think a lot of men are intimidated by intelligent women.
Men grow up with this idea that they have to be physically or mentally superior to their partner. No disrespect intended, it's like an instinct. In order for a man to find (/attract) a good partner he feels like he has to show of in some way and have at least a few exceptional talents to impress women. And I don't think it's wrong to say that women are attracted faster to men who are either physically fit, smart, exceptionally funny, witty or in some way more interesting than the average. In a society where women are suppressed men feel safe, because it is easy for them to dominate and feel 'better' then their female counterparts.

Luckily we live in a society where men and women are (or can) be equals (it's far from perfect nor is it a flawless system, but at least there's been progress the last hundred years). In this society however some men still try to dominate women by attacking their self-esteem for instance. They are intimidated by women who are obviously smarter than them or can easily dominate them in some other way, so they react (indeed) very schoolyard-like.

In general people feel like they have to live up to high expectations in this day and age.
Not everyone will be able to live up to those expectations, so some get depressed or get self-esteem problems. Another large group will feel the urge to make other people feel bad in order to feel better themselves. Isn't that what trolls are on the internet? People with low self-esteem who like to abuse the anonymous character of the internet.

You have a mind for thinking, you got exceptional writing skills, are open minded, independent, physically fit and got over-average social skills. You underestimate how frightening and intimidating you are to some men (and women). But maybe you also underestimate how incredibly attractive and sexy you are to other people. Luckily there are still more then enough people of the second kind and in some fucked up twisted way, you can consider troll comments and hater comments like compliments.

[geoff]

My daughter (16) for some reason likes to bash pretty girls and women. I'm hoping this is a just a phase, but when I try to tell her that wearing a miniskirt does not make someone a whore, she just rolls her eyes. Kind of disturbing. And her best friend is beautiful! Weird.

Off topic, I saw the new Bussel- edited D/S book at the store yesterday, but was too embarrassed to buy it, thanks to the pervalicious cover! What a maroon!! Guess I'll have to get the Mrs. to pick it up for me.

[G]

Thank you for this argument. Over a dinner of sushi last week, a guy and I were discussing feminism. His main thought was that he didn't understand the point of feminism...we have affirmative action to protect us, we have achieved equality, we have government-enacted laws that grant us rights. We can get the same jobs a man can, anywhere. What the hell were we women moaning and groaning about? He basically said that our goal has been achieved, there's nothing much to fight for now.

But to me, men and women aren't equal. And yes, on the books, we do have the same rights as men. However, official rules don't change unofficial attitudes, views, and behaviors toward women. I was frustrated because I couldn't quite formulate an articulate, strong argument over my plate of chicken tempura an coconut-shrimp rolls. (In fact, as I type this out, I think of a dozen more points I could've thrown into the conversation. Damn l'esprit d'escalier.)

And I very much agree with the point of women bashing other women. During that heated dinner talk, I did admit that the fault of the imbalance between the genders does in fact lie partly with women themselves. Women need to stand up for each other. They should help raise their fellow women up rather maliciously putting them down.

Okay, and I just got very preachy there, lol. I suppose your post inspired me. Maybe next time me and that dude delve into the realms of feminism, I'll be better prepared. ;)

[Girasole]

Chelseagirl, firstly, I am new to your writing but from the little I've scanned I am really impressed by your insights. And your treatment of things: never has the use of the colon and semicolon seemed sexier or funnier to me. I can't quite view them as intimidating any more! See I even used one - just for you...

Your comments here are so perceptive and so true. All too often guys are all lumped into "bad guys" while women are the ones that are "hard done by". I've known many great guys who were ripped apart by heartless women...Truth is we are all just people struggling to make our way in the world. If only we all could start from a more compassionate premise, I am sure we would see more flowers along the path of life.

As for the recent post on heartbreak. I feel for you. Just when you get yourself back on an even keel up comes another wave. I promise it does get better. Be true to yourself. Always honour your feelings. There may be a few more waves but judging from your writing you've got yourself an amazing surfboard to ride them out.

[Sabina]

That's an interesting point about anonymous trolls. Since I've been lucky enough to never experience girl-on-girl crime in real life, I always assumed that the commenters telling me they wish my mother had had an abortion were male, but maybe that's not the case.

[Mark]

One thing not factored into this equation is that the Internet provides a mechanism for teens and pre-teens to have a voice with adults, something that simply wasn't possible before. In the pre-internet days, adults had their world and other than being a parent, there was very little interaction with 12-year olds and their habits. Now, all connections are possible regardless of age, thus a bratty 10-year old has no problems with posting some horrific blast of obscenity and hate towards people he/she do not even know, just because at that age its cool and fun to do.

Obviously there are total jerks at any age level and rather than being insulated from them physically as good society was before the internet now they have the ability to spew onto anyone they choose. There are some downsides to full communication

[Gander]

Sheesh. How demoralizing. I know a lot of female bloggers get trolled and flamed and so forth and I've always noted that our blog doesn't get the trolls. I have vague memories of one or two but that's all. We don't have Violet's or your traffic, of course, but it's not insignificant and a lot comes from random porn-y googlers. I assume that the big difference is that we're a couple blog although Goose does most of the writing. "Gander" is in title and in the sidebar and that alone must keep these cowardly troll-types from cutting loose. If they're mantrolls it's, 'don't shit on some other dude's girl' and if they're ladytrolls...I don't know, maybe it's 'she's a married lady, don't bother'? Either way, it just suggests a corollary here that female expression is a tempting target for these cretins and if it comes from a woman perceived as single, especially so.

[MJ]

Good post.

I can't say much about women on women hate right now, but you sure are right about the ugly character of the internet on women in general. For a number of reasons I read a bunch of law firm industry/legal blogs and cites, and MAN OH MAN is that a group of people not yet ready to let women rise - or even live. It's so discouraging. Women in the profession or women commenting are fat, or ugly, or whores, or bitches, or fat bitches (combine at will), or dried up hags, or stupid old hags, or ugly fat hags - yadda yadda yadda. It's like the misery of the group just explodes out in hate at "the other" - aren't we supposed to be past this at this point?

[Mrs. Hall]

I agree that women should be nicer to each other. It is all psychological warfare out there.

But, I would expand this niceness to each of us. I strive to be nice, friendly and polite to everyone. Even if they are a deep pain in my ass.

I just think that part of the problem is everyone is so separate and so chaotic in modern day society. So we wage war in terms of words and remarks.

In the great words of one Ms. Ani Difranco, "Just suck it up and be nice."

It is amazing what can happen.

love to your posts:

Mrs. Hall (a practicing love monger)

[Orv]

Well, on discussion boards that I frequent, I get the impression that the trolls run about 3 or 4 to one male to female. But the really nasty, vicious trolls seem to be pretty much evenly gender split, or if anything, the female uber-trolls are worse.

If its true that a woman knows how to take another woman down, it is also true that men know how to take a man down. Chelsea writes a sex blog, which is (sadly) going to attract female resentment; from time to time I have kept a sports blog, on and about a sport I dearly love, played in my youth, and now coach. I have gotten heat on that one that you would not believe, including stalking, threats, attempted denial of service attacks, spam floods, attempted outing, and a great deal more viciousness. All that over and above the usual flaming and torrents of obscene abuse.

It actually hurt quite a bit, to have something I loved doing spit on so thoroughly, by fellow fans.

[Alana]

You're a genius. Perfectly tuned and timed post. Appreciated beyond words. Thank you. Love, A

[minstrel hussain boy]

and you don't like weak women you get bored to quick
and you don't like strong women 'cause they're hip to your tricks

it's been dirty for dirty
all down the line. . .

joanie mitchell

(she nailed that shit solid)

[ell]

I'm too innocuous to get hate comments - I just spent an hour on a radical feminist patriarchy blaming blog - if you want to see a group really go for the "sex positive" one, it can't be beaten for vicious entertainment. Sad but true.

[Marianne]

I've been subjected to schoolyard-type harassment on the net by a woman, under the guise of humour. In so many ways, it hurt more because she was a woman, and one in a situation not unlike my own. To be held up to ridicule because of who you are, the things you choose to do with your body (it's not always comments about looks that people use as weapons, sometimes it's comments about choices), is more painful than I thought possible. It does cut at one's self-esteem, and even the realization that the self-esteem of the other must be more battered than my own is no real comfort when it's happening. Quite the opposite. Women, people actually, should support each other whenever possible. We need that.