rape

Ugly, hairy and ranting menstrually: looks like it’s my week for misogynist insults

“You always remember the first time someone calls you ugly on the internet”.

This, the opening line of an article in the New Statesman today about sexist abuse of female bloggers, struck a chord with me because just a few days ago I was also, albeit indirectly, referred to as ugly, by a total stranger.

The background was that, in early October I’d written a blog about how the founder of a company that had been criticised for selling offensively sexist T-shirts had referred to the people who complained as “ugly feminists”.

My piece got quite a lot of hits at the time then everything went quiet and I carried on writing about misplaced apostrophes and other trivia as usual. Then, on Tuesday this week, I noticed I was suddenly getting zillions of hits on that blog post. It turned out the owner of the company concerned had posted a link on Facebook to my blog, complaining that “ugly feminists” didn’t like him.

The guy clearly has a good following because a whole heap of his chums visited my blog to post unpleasant remarks.

If you want to read more you can click on the link below and scroll down. http://fwords.co.uk/2011/10/10/how-not-to-deal-with-a-pr-crisis-call-complainants-%E2%80%98ugly-feminists%E2%80%99-and-tell-them-to-%E2%80%98get-a-life%E2%80%99/

But for now here’s a summary of some of the good ones.

“James” informed me that the sudden interest in my “tedious journalism” was an “annomily [sic] in your otherwise pointless life”. “Ravi” said I was “a terrible bore”. “Benji” wondered if my “awful portfolio” was keeping me from “real employment”, which I thought was a bit unfair, since what kept me from gainful work that day was having to moderate and respond to Benji and his friends.

One of my new penpals, one “Simon”, proved more intelligent than the rest in that he understood irony. He claimed to have had an epiphany as the result of reading my piece and had cancelled his order for a T-shirt (cleverly providing a link to another garment that was possibly more offensive than the one being discussed).

“Randy John” turned his attention on an earlier commenter who’d written criticising the misogynist remarks, asking “do you let the bush stick out the sides of your knickers?” She didn’t reply so I guess he’ll never know.

“Warren” accused “you and your hairy, fat, rug munching followers” of having better moustache’s [sic] than the men, adding wittily “there is not enough shaving foam in the world to make you look more attractive”.

(There’s a strange obsession with female body hair among a certain type of man – it’s curious. I need a psychologist to explain this to me. There were several comments, too, about menstruation and PMS – again, an interesting theme perhaps worthy of discussion another time.)

There were also offensive remarks towards one of the other commenters, suggesting that if every woman was as ugly as her there would be no rapists.

Ooh, and hot off the presses here’s a new one. I’d almost stopped crying about how ugly I am but here comes a nice young man called “Boris” to remind me. Darn. Apparently I’m just like a modern day Emmeline Pankhurst, “only you are much uglier…. and much less significant.” Note to self: find picture of Pankhurst to establish how ugly that makes me.

Anyway, in the New Statesman article I mentioned (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/helen-lewis-hasteley/2011/11/comments-rape-abuse-women), journalist Helen Lewis-Hasteley says: “Almost all bloggers attract some extremely inflammatory comments … [but] there is something distinct, identifiable and near-universal about the misogynist hate directed at women online”.

Lewis-Hastely interviewed several bloggers who describe some of the vitriol they’ve incurred through being female and, what’s even more unacceptable, being opinionated females. Worth a read if you’re interested in the whole issue of what Lewis-Hastely calls the “degradation of discourse” on the internet.

I’d just add that there were also a lot of thoughtful, intelligent and supportive comments on my blog, many of them from men, who were surprised and disturbed by the attitudes of some of their kind towards women.

I’ve also had a lot of people contacting me outside the blog to say I shouldn’t be engaging with what one termed “crazies” and what another called “knuckle-dragging gorillas”. I’m inclined to agree. If anyone else wants to leave comments, please play nice.

Pic credit: www.morguefile.com

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How NOT to deal with a PR crisis: call complainants ‘ugly feminists’ & tell them ‘get a life’

Ooops. Bit of a PR disaster going on right now. On Friday I blogged about a T shirt with the offensive slogan “No + Rohypnol = yes”. There was outrage about it on Twitter and the company concerned received numerous complaints.

See http://fwords.co.uk/2011/10/07/another-day-another-offensive-t-shirt-for-thugs-%E2%80%93-and-this-time-it%E2%80%99s-about-how-rape-is-fun/

It seems that there has been a degree of damage limitation: one of those who complained has reported that he has received a written apology. I have not had a reply to my complaint but maybe it’s in the post. Anyway apparently the reply from the company, Chargrilled, says it does not endorse sexual violence, it has removed the T shirt in question from sale and it will be speaking to its product designers to make them aware that “this kind of message is unacceptable”.
Anyway, so far, so good. Someone at the company has had some PR training. However, the good done by that sensible piece of crisis management has been undone by an ill-judged tweet from one Charlie Shiner (Twitter handle @charlieshiner), who is believed to be the founder of the company.

Poor Mr Shiner was perhaps feeling a bit grumpy at being picked on about his T shirt, which he seems to regard as a bit of fun. Rather than leave it to the PR department to handle things, and either maintain a discreet silence or offer an intelligent, thoughtful response, as he should have done, Shiner chose to gob off on Twitter.

“Our T shirts are meant to amuse not to offend,” he wrote earlier today. “We are sorry if you don´t have a sense of humour. Get a life.”

Oops. Bad move. Someone in the company should really have sat on the unfortunate Shiner at this point and taped his hands together to prevent him accessing a computer. But they didn’t and things got much worse.

“Anyone out there who does not like my t-shirts, I really don’t care,” pronounced Shiner this afternoon. “You don’t have to buy them. They weren’t meant for ugly feminists.”

Ah, so they are meant for… other men who think that women are ugly feminists and that it’s OK to drug women in order to get laid?

Silly man. I feel he hasn’t heard the end of this.

Another day, another offensive T shirt for thugs – and this time it’s about how rape is fun

I thought I’d written about as much as one non-fashion-conscious woman could write on the subject of T shirts after blogging about the Topman products that many said glamorised domestic violence and treated women as animals.

http://fwords.co.uk/2011/09/14/is-this-t-shirt-a-deliberate-trivialisation-of-domestic-violence/ and http://fwords.co.uk/2011/09/14/attention-turns-to-%E2%80%9Ctax-avoidance%E2%80%9D-as-topman-withdraws-t-shirts-from-sale/

But no – tonight, just as I was about to switch off the computer and go and do something else, Twitter started to discuss an offensive new offering from another company. This time it’s a T with the slogan “No + Rohypnol = Yes”.

Now, you could argue – and some did – that in the case of the Topman Ts, no offence was intended; it was just a bit of fun; it wasn’t intended to refer specifically to domestic violence. I think it will be harder for the makers of this latest example to use that justification. I’m not sure what other activity could possibly be referred to by the Rohypnol slogan. Under what circumstances could the use of Rohypnol be a bit of fun?

I don’t think I’m even going to mention the name of the manufacturer, cos I suspect they’d like that. If you want to know more, search “rape T shirts” on Twitter.

The upshot of the Topman controversy was that the company withdrew the product (and, it has to be said, did so PDQ). They had the sense, and the PR expertise, to understand damage limitation. I wonder if this latest lot will take the same approach. They are best known for their adverts in lads’ mags, where I imagine little offence is taken. Possibly they have been doing this sort of thing for years and no-one has noticed.

But it looks like the Rohypnol slogan which, let’s face it, even most men must find lacking in good taste, is about to get the company wider publicity which it might or might not find to its benefit.

I wasn’t able to save a picture of the product from the company’s website, but if you see one of the burly, inarticulate, under-achieving gorillas who frequent our streets on a Saturday night walking down the road wearing one, I’m sure you’ll recognise it. It’ll be the T shirt that says, in other words, “I fink rape’s funny”.

PS Here’s another blog post on the subject, explaining far more intelligently than me why this product is so offensive. http://fortyshadesofgrey.blogspot.com/2011/10/another-hilarious-t-shirt.html