Wednesday 25 March 2009

Women bloggers face sexist atmosphere online

Just came across this article.. Apparently, women bloggers face 'sexist atmosphere online' .

What do you think? Do you agree? Do you think that as a woman, the way fellow bloggers treat you, is different? Or is this just a western phenomenon?

From my perspective, to be honest, I have not really faced anything like this. But that might be because my blogging circle so far, has been full extremely polite, well behaved individuals..

I would love to hear from all of you... Have you had such experiences? Men, bloggers - would love to hear your perspective too...

Edited to add : I just found this online.. Looks like this is not so uncommon a problem...

This is what Vimmuuu had to say 'I have come across one blogger who was abused to the core. I had written a post on it last year, after another blogger Poonam had mentioned it. check it out, theres a link at the end of the post, you would be blown away reading all the abuses she had to go through : http://vimalsparadise.blogspot.com/2008/06/incident-of-web-abuse.html'

39 comments:

hitch writer said...

I wouldnt know if anything like this happens...

infact all the while I have been thinking that the number of female bloggers is far more than males...

and if that is true than I am sure the article you linked is not talking about everyone but a few incidences...

after all the world has crows and pigeons both !! so nething is possible !

Smitha said...

@Hitchwriter - That was eactly my thoughts.. By far, there seem to be more women bloggers than men.. So these incidents must be exceptions than the norm..But as you say 'after all the world has crows and pigeons both !! so nething is possible '!

Saritha said...

I am blogging since 4 months but never came across such thing.
Honestly i never thought that such things can happen in blogging.
Plagiarism is going on in food blogs,but the blogger whoes work has been copied never said a single bad thing abt the blogger who copied her work.
Maybe be it is western phenomenon
|I agree to what dhiren as said nothing is possible.

Smitha said...

@Varunavi.. I agree with you.. Have not faced any discrimination so far.. It might be a western phenonmenon, where people might be posting vicious comments on women's blogs...

Anonymous said...

I echo with hitchwriter, and I am sure and believe this doesn't happens in my blog samaj :)

hitch writer said...

@ Chirag - correction - Our blog samaj dude !!!

Smitha said...

@Chirag - 'Blog samaj' - loved it :)

@Hitchwriter - yes yes 'our blog samaj' :)

hitch writer said...

Boost advertisement : Chirag = Sachin

Dhiren = Sehwag !!!

tee hee... :) yuk yuk...

Anonymous said...

I dont think its happening in blogging world. If at all it happens means it will be one off cases.

Dr. Ally Critter said...

Yes women bloggers face sexism. I have been called a C*** on a blog when I was disagreeing with someone, on a political issue. I don't see too many men getting that.

Smitha said...

@lankrita - Welcome! Yes, I was just doing more googling on this and found that it is apparently quite common.. Yes you are right, a man would never get called that.. Somehow, there also seems to be a lot more abuse words to target women..

OG said...

I would not know....:( but from what I have seen in our "BLog Samaj", women make better bloggers than men..........


Well, I am sure it exists in the world, but I make sure that it does exist in mine!!

Vinod_Sharma said...

I really have not come across this atmosphere at all. Of course, there will always be people who will use certain words but I am sure most of them will use such words against men too.

Unknown said...

are you kidding me !
this is like creating a beast out of nothing.

manju said...

What exactly are we talking about when we say 'sexist atmosphere'? There are degrees to everything.

Smitha said...

@Manju, I was talking about the kind of stuff that was mentioned in the article.. as I had never come across anything like that...

@Anrosh - Probably.. Just wanted to know if anybody I knew had ever experienced this sort of discrimination - if you can call it that..

@Vinod.. Guess you are right about that..

@Ajit, Yes, I am sure you do that - make sure that it does not exist in your part of the world..

@Kanagu - Yes, it could be a one off case...

OG said...

I am so sorry about last line:
------------
I am sure it exists in the world, but I make sure that it does exist in mine!!
------------
it should read "but I make sure that it does NOT exist in mine"

but I suppose you got it... :) LOL

Indyeah said...

IN our blog samaaj this has not happened:))all the people I know here encourage bloggers regardless of gender.Period.
Infact Vinod Sir sometimes gets irritated when i doubt my beliefs and say I dont know a subject:))SO the encouragement here in our samaaj is overwhelming..


BUt I do know a friend who has been told to go back to being a housewife because she is so damn good at articulating her thoughts strongly..

and sometimes I see an almost patronising tone in comments from strangers who want to remain 'anonymous'

but that problem I am sure is faced by men equally so I dont really know...

I think we all are part of a very sabhya blog samaaj but when I go blog hopping to random blogs that I dont know , I do notice some people(actually they are anonymous)commenting and its all hate against that woman,calling her names and using words like the one Alankrita shared and worse:((
..:(
very few women bloggers dont have comment moderation and they face the brunt of it..

comment moderation is a boon





LOL@Dhiren's Boost advertisemnet:D

Indyeah said...

oh!and I completely forgot!
my posts on PCC got venomous comments from anonymous people and I had to enable comment moderation from then on


I have heard of the same thing from fellow bloggers regarding posts on PCC..all of them almost got such comments

vimmuuu said...

I have come across one blogger who was abused to the core. I had written a post on it last year, after another blogger Poonam had mentioned it. check it out, theres a link at the end of the post, you would be blown away reading all the abuses she had to go through :

http://vimalsparadise.blogspot.com/2008/06/incident-of-web-abuse.html

Anonymous said...

I have never faced any and am blogging for 3 months now.

Yes! there are occasional trolls but the same ones harass others too irrespective of gender.

But at times I have seen that people write off women sooner. Also, a tendency to shrug off a woman as a trophy piece if she stands up for something. I haven't seen the same when it comes to men. So you never know. May be a place where there are more male bloggers, may be women are shrugged off.

Here,in our blog samaj, it doesn't happen. I enjoy debating, arguing, leg-pulling with fellow bloggers esp. male bloggers. Sometimes they make the best friends.

So let me take this opportunity to thank and send {{{hugs}}} to some of our sweet male bloggers
Chirax, Dhiren, Ajit, Vichu, Kanagu, Vimmu, Mr. Sharma, Rakesh zone, QI. I can't remember more names.

Anonymous said...

Oh! actually before I started blogging, there was this incident of a Malayali lady 'injimanga' who was harassed because she reported plagiarism. She was sent so many abusive mails. Her address and phone number was tracked too.

She is a strong woman and she also got support from entire blogging community. Her food blog is still active.

Anonymous said...

Since Abhi mentioned PCC, we discussed then that same anonymous people were commenting on mine too when I supported PCC.

Also on my recent Mallika Sarabhai post, I got some not-so-good (name calling) anonymous comments which I laughed off and deleted as such trolls don't matter to me. I write what I believe in.

For most part, such people are going to be everywhere. We just ignore and move on.

Anonymous said...

@Solilo Thanks :)

Anonymous said...

Dhiren as I said earlier, you are too kind :) and we both can be Sachin, you Sachin 1 and me Sachin 2

Smitha, sorry if we are using the comment space as a instant messenger :)

Pixie said...

this is news to me!
I have not come across anything like this before... but, then my blogging cirlce is a very small one, when compared to some who get around 100+ comments to 1 post!!!

OG said...

danks Solilo....:P

Anonymous said...

I m not a veteran in blogsamaj but in last two month never got any comment which i had to delete coz of any reason...And as other said above there are more women bloggers..so atleast this cant happen here :-)

Smitha said...

@Ajit - Yes, I definitely got that :)

@Indyeah, I think you are right - It does seem as if women bloggers face such comments when they write about controversial topics.. Guess, there must be a regressive part of society, who obviously believe that they are doing some good(?) when they comment like this! I guess comment moderation is the only option in that case..
However if you see the link that Vimmuuu has posted - its shocking! When all the poor woman did was protest that the content was plagiarized... That is abuse at a totally different level.. What can one do when something like this happens?

As for vicious commentators - I am sure both men and women face this..

Smitha said...

Vimmuuu - That was so shocking. What can you do when you face this kind of abuse.. Its absolutely shocking.. I was not able to find her post though. Looks like she has taken it off... Thanks for sharing this..

Smitha said...

Solilo, Yes, me neither. And we are lucky that our 'blog samaj' is so wonderful.. It is a real pleasure to interact with everyone here!

Having said that, I guess most of the abuse, offensive comments come from anonymous commentators - who think they can get away with anything under the anonymity..

And I think you are referring to the same person about whon Vimmuuu has written.. It is so shocking - and have to appreciate how brave she is - as she is continuing to blog - not letting them get her down..But that was a scary story..

Smitha said...

@Chirag/Dhiren - No problemo - You guys are very entertaining :)

@Pixie - Agree, with you - same here.. My circle too is very small - so I guess I hide from a lot of these trolls:)

@Rashmi - It looks like it does happen - but probably not to everybody.. But from the look of it - some people have had very very bad experiences..

hitch writer said...

Chirag : There is only one Sachin and One Sehwag...

I ll be the dashing veeru...

you be the classy sachin !

now who's gonna be the wall dravid... number three ???

lol

hitch writer said...

Ohhh tooo busy at the cricket comments... I almost missed the hugs !!!!!

geee....


Solilo you rock 1!!!!!

Happy Kitten said...

Read abt "ingi" the Malayali girl myself some time back and I used to wonder if blogs can really affect some people to that extend! She fought very bravely.

I myself was forced to turn on the comment moderation on my blog after I wrote something on religion... but then I did not get any gender specific comments..

but then I guess some blogs specially by women bloggers are making a few people mad! which is very good..:)

Smitha said...

@Happy Kitten, Oh yes - totally agree with this - 'I guess some blogs specially by women bloggers are making a few people mad! which is very good..:)'!!

Anonymous said...

I did not know anything like this happens!! But i was a bit concerned abt uploading my personal fotos for the reason that they might be used elsewhere for wrong purposes!

Like you, I never faced anything mainly coz the men who follow my blog are simple and decent !
Its shocking and sad to know this happens...its just perverted!

Indian Home Maker said...

I have faced disagreements from anonymous commenter, who think women 'ask for it' or women should expect some amount of bias in a patriarchal society as a part of life ...but I think that would have happened even if I was a man.
But I have no doubt some amount of sexism must exist in some blogging communities.

Smitha said...

@Sahaja, Yes, it does seem a little scary, if your snaps get misused.. That possibility always exists..
And yes, we have been lucky - should I say, so far?

@IHM, Yes, anonymous commentators seem to be quite common.. As for the sexist attitude, I would agree with you that it must be existing in some places..