Sinéad Baker | Editor-at-Large
Jessica Valenti, a columnist at the Guardian US, is one of the most prominent journalists who writes frequently on feminist and women’s issues. Valenti frequently offers opinion on general topics such as abortion, sexual assault and definitions of femininity. She also writes on topical cultural phenomena like Keira Knightley posing topless, Taylor Swift music videos and Barbie. Yet, in some circles, Valenti is as well known for the abusive responses she receives online as she is for her writing skills.
Valenti is a good writer. If she wasn’t, it would be unlikely that the Guardian, one of the most-respected newspapers in the world, would employ her as a columnist. Even if her standards of writing were poor, that is what the comments on her pieces should focus on: addressing either the style or content of such pieces, and contributing to those debates. The types of comments, however, typically found at the end of her pieces or responding to her on Twitter would suggest otherwise. Although abuse online, particularly abuse aimed at prolific internet personas, is par for the course for anyone who chooses to engage online, these comments are rarely as pointed as those that Valenti receives. She recently tweeted asking for knowledge regarding the subsidisation of tampons: “Twitter friends: Anyone know a country where tampons are free or somehow subsidized?” and was met with a barrage of abuse, with responses including “If you’re so worried abt tampon availability, maybe U need 2 stick a few fingers in UR you-know-what to stem the bleeding” and “can i also pay for ur toilet paper & ur vagina cream?Anything else u need f/ taxpayers just let me know. I gotcha.”
The abuse that they gave her is not related to the content or substance of her articles and uses content that can only be aimed at women. This is a type of abuse that is aimed at prominent female figures whether or not they talk about women’s issues
What’s worrying about these responses is that they specifically attack her using language that targets her gender. They cannot be a response to her opinion on the matter – she had not yet written the article. The tweet was just a simple request for information. What was to be done with that information was yet to be revealed. However, due to the continuous nature of her work, people were either attacking her because they assumed that she was preparing to argue for at least a theoretical position that would benefit women (admittedly at the cost of the taxpayer) or else were likely to respond to any to any woman on the internet that dares to ask a question. This second option seems much less likely. The abuse that they gave her is not related to the content or substance of her articles and uses content that can only be aimed at women. This is a type of abuse that is aimed at prominent female figures whether or not they talk about women’s issues although, as Valenti typifies, this abuse seems to increase in these cases.
The point here is not whether or not we believe in the content of Valenti’s articles, or even support the idea of feminism, but that people do not deserve to be discriminated against or receive abuse as a result of their gender, yet for females it is accepted as inevitable – coming hand in hand with any platform they gain from which to speak.
A male Australian TV co-host recently chose to wear the same suit every day for the year in response to frequent comments received by his co-host about her outfits. Commenting that no one had noticed his actions, he told Australian newspaper The Age: “I’m judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humour – on how I do my job, basically. Whereas women are quite often judged on what they’re wearing or how their hair is”. A recent report by think tank Demos revealed that female journalists on Twitter are harassed roughly three times more than male journalists, and female journalists remain underrepresented in opinion and sports pages, as well as in sections on politics, finances and on air.
The fact that I might be subject to more vile and systematic abuse for choosing to express my opinion or, if I was a journalist, simply doing my own, very important, job, is deplorable.
Proper procedures are slowly being put in place to prevent these instances. In the case of Valenti over at the Guardian, the paper has strict community standards that specifically mention both sex and gender. These standards “inform [the Guardian’s] approach to community moderation”, with one of the guidelines stating: “We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech, or contributions that could be interpreted as such”. Comments that are seen to be “attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age” are not accepted. In Valenti’s article published last week entitled “If we truly valued motherhood, we would actually do something to help pregnant women” four out of the five most recent comments removed by moderators didn’t abide by the Guardian’s community standards. Twitter is due to roll out a new system for reporting abuse which involves fewer steps. These developments are welcome, yet the root of the problem is not that these kinds of comments aren’t removed, but rather that they are made in the first place.
On Twitter, Valenti recently described herself as having spent “ten years getting threatened daily” with one response reading “men and women get harassed and threatened all the time online. Only women constantly go on about it.” The fact is that if people are receiving threats, they have the right to be publically upset about that fact, and should not feel ashamed for admitting it, regardless of their gender. Steps are not being taken to protect these journalists. The International Women’s Media Foundation, in a study of over 500 companies in 59 nations, found that only two thirds of companies have a specific policy on gender, and even less have a policy on sexual harassment. The Irish Times community standards make no explicit mention of gender, and at a recent event a female journalist who had written for The Irish Times informed me that attempting to get comments which discriminate based on gender removed is difficult, and that she had received “rape threats” for having opinions on financial policy.
The fact that I might be subject to more vile and systematic abuse for choosing to express my opinion or, if I was a journalist, simply doing my own, very important, job, is deplorable. This issue is larger than a women’s issue: in a time when our understanding of gender is moving towards the male-female binary, we leave people open to abuse who are already subject to frequent abuse or who might not even yet be considered equal in the eyes of the law. For Valenti to not be able to look at peoples responses to her on Twitter, which is important for a journalist to be able to do, because “the nastiness is too much to take every day” is entirely unacceptable.
