In a discursive setting, hateful language and abuse like that individual’s is meant to frighten, to hurt, and TO SILENCE.
Calling women with whom you disagree “feminazis” and “pathetic scum” and “idiots” and “cunts” and “twats” and “trash” and telling us to go kill ourselves is intended to shut us up.
It is intended to make us slink away from debate, intended to make us cower in fear at the violence embedded in the words and the tone in which they are written or spoken, and intended to make us doubt ourselves and our ability to participate in public debate.
It is intended to reassert dominance by a dominant group over a marginalized group, and it is intended to undercut the credibility of all women who dare to speak against those who uphold the social privilege status quo.
It is intended to put women in their place. Scared. Unassuming. Dominated. SILENT.
For real.
I was going to write something about this attack that certain unsavory elements are unleashing on both STFUConservatives and myself. An attack that, I shall remind you all (and newcomers to this blog) started because I (and many others) have been relentless in trying to get Tumblr’s attention to revise who curates content for the entire site (a site that Tumblr prides itself by pointing that it hosts 20+ million blogs). The baffling lack of diversity and blatant promotion of what I call “Hate Politics” that Tumblr endorses by giving a platform to a known anti-abortion and misogynist activist (a person who actively works against Affirmative Action) is absolutely unacceptable.
I started going after this because I believe we have a right not to be attacked in the same platforms we use to discuss the constant undermining of our reproductive justice rights. We have a right to a platform that doesn’t promote hate against us. We are entitled to not being aggressively put down and subject to hostility by people who wish to deny us our humanity.
And those now wish for me to “go and kill myself”. I won’t. Because as insignificant as I might be in many aspects, I still believe I have shit left to say and to fight for. These hostilities thrown at me right now are proof of that.
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