Anti-social socialising

I am so sick of people using social media to abuse others.

Yesterday, someone tweeted prominent professor of classics Mary Beard "However, I would like M Beard to shut up, but as a woman I can say that". So I could have tweeted "Fuck off back to Closer magazine, you vapid eighth-wit!" in response and that would have been fine, because I'm packin' the double X, right?

No.

I think those who use social media as a platform to abuse need pity rather than confrontation. They're probably very lonely, judging by their appalling views and personalities, and any kind of response to their abuse is giving them the attention they crave. Of course threats of violence, such as those made to short-track speed skater Elise Christie, should be dealt with swiftly by PC Plod. I hope those who are abusing Ms Christie have a cabinet full of Olympic medals, otherwise they're going to look really sad and pathetic.

Is it any wonder though, really? Professor Beard also made the point in her recent lecture about bad behaviour in Parliament, where women MPs are frequently heckled and shouted over when giving speeches or asking questions. Given the current front bench are almost exclusively men educated way above their intellect and instilled with the arrogance of their born to rule class, shouting at women is easy. God knows running a country competently is way beyond their abilities. This circus of blaming the poor, sick, disabled and unBritish for the mistakes of the bankers isn't washing anymore, but I'm sure they're plotting who to spit venom at next, ably assisted by their toxic lapdogs The Daily Mail and The Daily Express. Has anyone been on The Daily Mail's website today? Just wondering who they're calling fat or old, or which 14-year-old daughter of a celebrity is getting the "leggy lovely" treatment. Probably two pages after their latest hysterical piece on paedophiles hiding up every tree. Don't worry, parents, they're just Daily Mail photographers. Then we have the likes of Katie Hopkins, who seems to be employed by television producers solely to troll those she feels are beneath her, as if having a kid called Tyler is worse than fucking a married man in a field. She seems quite proud of her status as husband-stealer, but once a cheat always a cheat and in ten years' time she could well be catching him in a field with a hot 20-year-old. Karma is a beautiful thing. With politics, the press and television swimming in the sludge of contempt for others, is it any wonder inadequates feel comfortable abusing people on social media?

But women have a role to play in silencing other women as well, as our friend in the second paragraph shows. I was told frequently by other women that I should hide my intelligence because men would find it intimidating. I'm not interested in men who are intimidated by intelligent women. Sure, I could giggle and twirl my hair but where would that get me? As soon as I started talking about Star Wars the game would be pretty much up. The women who told me that based their entire worth on getting a man. They judged themselves purely by who they were married to, as if standing on their own would have them marked out as some kind of weirdo. Never mind that most of them were in desperately unhappy relationships, because God forbid you be happier alone than with a man. Of course, given my current situation they were probably right, but stuffing down my opinions so a poor widdle empty-headed man doesn't feel fweatened is just not my problem. How many women have stuck themselves with a total bore because they won't admit they know all the answers on Pointless? Quite a few I expect.

So men abuse women online because they're inadequate, and women abuse women online because they want to show how feminine they are by not using big words and trying to shut up women who do. Well, as ever, it's not that simple. What we really have to address is when "feminine" became synonymous with "dumb" for some people, and why some men feel so powerless and lost as women slowly but surely rise up to meet them. If their masculinity is based on femininity being subordinate, then there are going to be more and more inadequate men turning up to abuse others. I do pity them, and hope they can find a peace within themselves. As for my sisters, they should probably give back their equal pay and maternity rights if feminism bothers them that much. Somehow I doubt it does.

Breasts and beheadings

Facebook has decided to let beheading videos back on to the site. Link to the BBC article.

I don't want to watch people being beheaded, and if any of my friends posted a link to such a thing they'd be unfriended pretty quickly. However, I am anti-censorship and don't believe such things should be banned from the internet entirely. It wouldn't be possible anyway. Facebook individually has some pretty weird standards, though.

From the article I've linked to:

Its terms and conditions now state that it will remove photos or videos that "glorify violence" in addition to other banned material, including a woman's "fully exposed breast".

So, no tits. Now, there are plenty of places on the internet to see fully exposed breasts, and again that's fine. What puzzles me is how a naked breast is on the same level as glorifying violence.

Facebook has previously removed photos of mastectomy survivors, link to Huffington Post. These images are often posted by women who want to let other people know that there is life after breast cancer, that they're still women, that their bodies are scarred but alive. There are many instances of them removing photos of women breastfeeding. In many cases the photos have been reinstated, or shared by so many people it's impossible for Facebook to remove them all. These photos come from a position of strength, and I'm tired of women's bodies being viewed as weak or objects of lust. I applaud women who use their bodies in any way that isn't all about men. Videos of beheadings come from a position of violence. I don't know how many of these videos show violence against women, and you'll forgive me for not researching it I hope, but statistically some of them will. I would rather have strength than violence.

Ultimately, my issue with this is that the policies make no sense. If Facebook wants to have a blanket ban on nudity and violence, that's absolutely their prerogative. It's their site, and we're just all guests there. I think what's happened is, rather than sitting down and forming a coherent policy, this has been cobbled together as they go along. It puts breastfeeding on the same line as sexual violence. Of course it's possible Facebook users are reporting images of mastectomies and breastfeeding as obscene, in which case they need to be told to shove it and grow up. There's an intelligent policy in there somewhere. It's up to Facebook to find it.