Content note: misogyny, harassment, threats of violence and rape and death, images of same
Here’s the thing. For hundreds of millions of people, the Internet is our workplace: we go there to collaborate, to do research, to promote our work. The Internet is the place where we meet our friends. It’s where we get our news. It’s where we organize charity activity, or political activity. For hundreds of millions of people, the Internet is a central hub of human activity.
Now. Think about what it would be like if every time you went to work, every time you went out with friends, every time you went out to get a newspaper, every time you went on a charity walkathon, every time you went to a neighborhood meeting to plan the new public park, you had people screaming at you how worthless you are, how ugly you are, how much they hate you, how much they want to torture and rape and kill you.
Think about showing up to work at 8:30 in the morning, and sitting down in this room.
Continue reading “A Woman’s Room Online: Misogyny, and the Idea That the Internet Isn’t Real” →