[Hat tip to Lydia for this. Communications and the means of production of communications are in a completely recursive relation with every other aspect of every oppressive system. Funny how the whole Imus thing is morphing. More contradictions than you can shake a stick at. Defense of the team members as “not ho’s” because they fit good-girl archetypes. Defense of Imus as a free speech icon. Join Howard Stern - a misogynist asshole, and Larry Flynt - another misogynist asshole. Calling out misogynist song lyrics; never realizing that what is being called out is liberalism. I am reminded of Patricia Williams’ description of ethical dilemmas poised to law students in order to inoculate them from any but a liberal (abstract) interpretation of the law. I have a suggestion. Read this article, then go watch MEF’s Wrestling with Manhood. The most directly misogynistic violence is being legitimated as theater, or humor. There is a backlash against feminism, decades long now, that is amplifying its anti-woman message (and recruiting) by avoiding accountability via the internet. Raises fractious questions about “speech” to say this; but avoiding contradictions does not make them go away. It ensures that the ignored contradiction will rise up and one day bite us squarely on the ass. -SG]

How the web became a sexists’ paradise

Everyone receives abuse online but the sheer hatred thrown at women bloggers has left some in fear for their lives. Jessica Valenti, editor of Feministing.com, reports

Friday April 6, 2007
The Guardian

Last week, Kathy Sierra, a well-known software programmer and Java expert, announced that she had cancelled her speaking engagements and was “afraid to leave my yard” after being threatened with suffocation, rape and hanging. The threats didn’t come from a stalker or a jilted lover and they weren’t responses to a controversial book or speech. Sierra’s harassers were largely anonymous, and all the threats had been made online.

Sierra had been receiving increasingly abusive comments on her website, Creating Passionate Users, over the previous year, but had not expected them to turn so violent - her attackers not only verbally assaulting her (”fuck off you boring slut . . . I hope someone slits your throat”) but also posting photomontages FULL ARTICLE